Underwater(8)

Before I can stop it they switch to footage from October fifteenth. They show a line of police cars twisting around the block. They show my classmates filtering out of the school, single file, hands on top of their heads, daring glances over their shoulders at the chaos behind them. My insides clench when I see Chelsea. It’s the way I remember her. The news people always show the footage with her in it because she’s screaming and crying and looks the most panicked out of everyone.

I can’t catch my breath. I feel like Ben is sitting on my chest—the way he does when we are pretending to wrestle. I finally get the remote straight between my fingers. I shut off the TV. I run to the medicine cabinet for my emergency pills. They are there, like a rope tethering me to the world. I need one. For the first time in almost eight weeks, I have to go there.

Twist, thwap, gulp.

I wait.

It’s not what I want it to be.

It’s not instant.

The zingy electricity is too much. I pace the living room. Back and forth. In front of the window. With the blinds closed. I might be dying.

I’m pretty sure I’m dying.

I don’t know what to do, so I call Brenda. She picks up on the second ring. I tell her about what I saw on the news. Chelsea. My school. I tell her how it made me remember. I tell her the building is gone but the memories aren’t.

“Seeing it like that is too real,” I say. “It makes it all come back.”

She tells me to breathe. She tells me I’m okay. She tells me I’m not dying. I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She tells me to picture myself in my favorite place, which I say is on a beach towel underneath the hot sun. I miss it. She talks about that place and how I can go there, in my head, on days like this. Her voice is soft, like fuzzy slippers. And when she’s done, I can think again.

I tell her I will be okay now.

We hang up. I go to my room. I pick up Ben’s stuffed animals from the floor and toss them onto his bed. I lie on my own bed. I stare at the ceiling and think of more good things. I think of Ben on the day he was born, all chubby and pink and bald. We sent pictures and a short video through e-mail to my dad in Afghanistan. He wrote us back saying, There’s my boy, and told us everyone in his platoon toasted him that day. He was good and proud. He was happy in the way I liked to remember him, because that happiness quickly slipped away when he returned and got even worse when he was deployed again. I think of the way newborn Ben wrapped his tiny fingers around one of mine. I think of sitting next to my mom’s hospital bed and rocking him under dim lights while he slept in my arms. I fall asleep to a feeling of a love I never knew until my brother got here.





chapter four

Nighttime makes the darkness last forever. I’m used to being alone during the day, but when my family is gone at night, I feel it. I’m used to snuggling up to Ben before bed and reading him books. We climb between the sheets and he curls into me to turn the pages. I run my fingers along the bigger words, hoping my pointing will help him to learn them. When he drifts off, his head droops underneath my chin and I can smell his apple shampoo. The dirty boy smell has been scrubbed clean. His mouth tilts open as he breathes his toothpaste breath on me. He has dark green pajamas with dinosaurs on them. The top buttons up and has a collar like a fancy shirt someone would wear to work in an office.

Tonight, Ben and my mom are at a birthday party.

Ben is eating pizza.

And cake.

He’s playing arcade games.

He will win a prize.

It will be loud and noisy with the chaos of kids.

If I were there, I’d be sweaty. I’d be overwhelmed. I’d want emptiness and I wouldn’t be able to find it. I’d have to cup my hands over my ears to block out the noise. Being in the middle of the chaos would make me feel like throwing up. I’d go to the bathroom and grasp the sides of the sink to wait for it to happen.

I’d take deep breaths.

I’d talk to myself in the mirror.

After a while, I’d feel like I could breathe again.

I’d take another deep breath. I’d draw in oxygen like I’d been trapped under an ocean wave and just rose to the surface. It would feel good.

I’d splash cold water from the public bathroom sink on my face. I would think it was gross because the sink wouldn’t be very clean. And there would be the faint smell of a dirty diaper coming from the trash can. But I would splash water on my face anyway because of the noise. And the flashing lights. And the screaming kids.

I know these things because I’ve done these things.

I tried to live in the world after October fifteenth.

I tried and I failed.

*

After October fifteenth, after that day, we had two weeks of candlelight vigils and celebrations of life instead of classes. Chelsea, Brianna, Sage, and I held hands and cried at every one of them. I told myself we were all hurting in the same way. I told myself I wasn’t worse off or different. And then I started at Ocean High School. A school that wasn’t mine. I tried to make the best of it. I slung my messenger bag crammed with books and pens and notebooks across my chest and walked through the hallways of my new school like it was no big deal. For three weeks, I pretended the slamming of lockers didn’t startle me. And the endless sea of backpacks didn’t make me flinch. And the crowded cafeteria didn’t make my heart beat too fast. I tried to sit in classrooms and pay attention, but the distraction was there. It was a gnawing feeling in the back of my head.