All the Bright Places (27 page)

He recites facts I already know about suicide and teenagers, and then we go around the room and say our names and how old we are and the thing we’ve been diagnosed with and if we’ve had any firsthand experience trying to kill ourselves. Then we say the phrase “________ is life,” as in whatever strikes us in that moment as something to celebrate, like “Basketball is life,” “School is life,” “Friends are life,” “Making out with my girlfriend is life.” Anything that reminds us how good it is to be alive.

A number of these kids have the slightly dull, vacant look of people on drugs, and I wonder what they’re taking to keep them here and breathing. One girl says, “
Vampire Diaries
is life,” and a couple of the other girls giggle. Another says, “My dog is life even when she’s eating my shoes.”

When it’s my turn, I introduce myself as Josh Raymond, seventeen, no previous experience beyond my recent halfhearted experiment with sleeping pills. “The Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect is life,” I add, even though no one knows what this means.

At that moment the door opens and someone runs in, letting the cold air in with her. She is hatted and scarved and mittened up tightly, unwrapping herself like a mummy as she finds her seat. We all turn and Demetrius smiles a comforting smile. “Come in, no worries, we’re just getting started.”

The mummy sits down, losing the scarf, mittens, and hat. She turns away from me, blond ponytail swinging, as she hooks her purse strap over her chair. She settles back, smoothing the loose strands of hair off her cheeks, which are pink from
the cold, and leaves her coat on. “I’m sorry,” Amanda Monk mouths at Demetrius, at the table. When her eyes get around to me, her face goes completely and immediately blank.

Demetrius nods at her. “Rachel, why don’t you go ahead?”

Amanda, as Rachel, avoids looking at me. In a wooden voice, she recites, “I’m Rachel, I’m seventeen, I’m bulimic, and I tried to kill myself twice, both times with pills. I hide myself away with smiles and gossip. I am not happy at all. My mother is making me come here. Secrecy is life.” She says this last line to me and then looks away.

The others take their turns, and by the time we get all the way around, it’s clear I am the only one here who hasn’t tried to really and truly kill himself. It makes me feel superior, even though it shouldn’t, and I can’t help thinking,
When I actually try, I’m not going to miss
. Even Demetrius has a story. These people are here and trying to get help and they’re alive, after all.

But the whole thing is heartbreaking. Between thoughts of bone char, and stories of wrist cutting and hangings, and bitchy Amanda Monk with her little pointed chin jutted out, so exposed and scared, I want to put my head on the table and let the Long Drop just come. I want to get away from these kids who never did anything to anyone except be born with different brains and different wiring, and from the people who aren’t here to eat these bone char cookies and share their tales, and the ones who didn’t make it and never had a chance. I want to get away from the stigma they all clearly feel just because they have an illness of the mind as opposed to, say, an illness of the lungs or blood. I want to get away from all the labels.
“I’m
OCD,” “I’m depressed,” “I’m a cutter,”
they say, like these are the things that define them. One poor bastard is ADHD, OCD, BPD, bipolar, and on top of it all has some sort of anxiety disorder. I don’t even know what BPD stands for. I’m the only one who is just Theodore Finch.

A girl with a fat black braid and glasses says, “My sister died of leukemia, and you should have seen the flowers and the sympathy.” She holds up her wrists, and even across the table I can see the scars. “But when I nearly died, no flowers were sent, no casseroles were baked. I was selfish and crazy for wasting my life when my sister had hers taken away.”

This makes me think of Eleanor Markey, and then Demetrius talks about medicines that are out there and helpful, and everyone volunteers the names of the drugs that are helping them get through. A boy at the other end of the table says the only thing he hates is feeling like everyone else. “Don’t get me wrong—I’d rather be here than dead—but sometimes I feel that everything that, like, makes me up has gone away.”

I stop listening after that.

When it’s over, Demetrius asks me what I thought, and I tell him it was eye-opening and enlightening and other things along those lines to make him feel good about the work he is doing, and then I chase down Amanda, as Rachel, in the parking lot before she can run away. “I’m not going to say anything to anyone.”

“You better not. I’m so serious.” Her eyes are wild, her face flushed.

“If I do, you can just tell them I’m a freak. They’ll believe
you. They’ll think I’m just making shit up. Besides, I was expelled, remember?” She looks away. “So do you still think about it?”

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.” She looks up. “What about you? Were you really going to jump off the bell tower before Violet talked you down?”

“Yes and no.”

“Why do you do that? Don’t you get tired of people talking about you?”

“Including you?”

She goes quiet.

“I do it because it reminds me to be here, that I’m still here and I have a say in the matter.”

She puts one leg in the car and says, “I guess now you know you’re not the only freak.” It’s the nicest thing she’s ever said to me.

I don’t hear from Finch for a day, then two days, then three days. By the time I get home from school on Wednesday, it’s snowing. The roads are white, and I’ve wiped out a half dozen times on Leroy. I find my mom in her office and ask if I can borrow her car.

It takes her a moment to find her voice. “Where are you going?”

“To Shelby’s house.” Shelby Padgett lives on the other side of town. I’m amazed at how easily the words come out of my mouth. I act like the fact that I’m asking if I can drive her car, when I haven’t driven in a year, is no big deal, but my mom is staring at me. She continues to stare as she hands me her keys and follows me to the door and down the sidewalk. And then I can see that she’s not just staring, she’s crying.

“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “We just weren’t sure … we didn’t know if we’d ever see you drive again. The accident changed a lot of things and it took a lot of things. Not that driving, in the great scheme of life, is so important, but you shouldn’t have to think twice about it at your age, except to be careful.…”

She’s kind of babbling, but she looks happy, which only makes me feel worse about lying to her. I hug her before climbing in behind the wheel. I wave and smile and start the engine and say out loud, “Okay.” I pull away slowly, still waving and smiling but wondering what in the hell I think I’m doing.

I’m shaky at first because it’s been so long and I wasn’t sure I’d ever drive again either. I jerk myself black and blue because I keep hitting the brakes. But then I think of Eleanor beside me, letting me drive home after I got my license.
You can drive me everywhere now, little sister. You’ll be my chauffeur. I’ll sit in the back, put my feet up, and just enjoy the view
.

I look over at the passenger seat and I can almost see her, smiling at me, not even glancing at the road, as if she doesn’t need to look because she trusts me to know what I’m doing without her help. I can see her leaning back against the door, knees under her chin, laughing at something, or singing along with the music. I can almost hear her.

By the time I get to Finch’s neighborhood, I’m cruising along smoothly, like someone who’s been driving for years. A woman answers the door, and this must be his mother because her eyes are the same bright-sky blue as Finch’s. It’s strange to think, after all this time, I’m only meeting her now.

I hold out my hand and say, “I’m Violet. It’s nice to meet you. I’ve come to see Finch.” It occurs to me that maybe she’s never heard of me, so I add, “Violet Markey.”

She shakes my hand and says, “Of course. Violet. Yes. He should be home from school by now.”
She doesn’t know he’s been expelled
. She is wearing a suit, but she’s in her stocking feet. There’s a kind of faded, weary prettiness to her. “Come on in. I’m just getting home myself.”

I follow her into the kitchen. Her purse sits on the breakfast table next to a set of car keys, and her shoes are on the floor. I hear a television from the other room, and Mrs. Finch calls, “Decca?”

In a moment I hear a distant “What?”

“Just checking.” Mrs. Finch smiles at me and offers me something to drink—water, juice, soda—as she pours herself a glass of wine from a corked bottle in the fridge. I tell her water’s fine, and she asks ice or no ice, and I say no ice, even though I like it better cold.

Kate walks in and waves hello. “Hey.”

“Hey. I came to see Finch.”

They chat with me like everything is normal, like he hasn’t been expelled, and Kate pulls something out of the freezer and sets the temperature on the oven. She tells her mother to remember to listen for the buzzer and then tugs on her coat. “He’s probably upstairs. You can go on up.”

I knock on the door to his room, but don’t get any answer. I knock again. “Finch? It’s me.”

I hear a shuffling, and the door opens. Finch wears pajama
bottoms but no shirt, and glasses. His hair spikes up in all directions, and I think,
Nerd Finch
. He gives me a lopsided grin and says, “The only person I want to see. My Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect.” He moves out of the way so I can come in.

The room has been stripped bare, down to the sheets on the bed. It looks like a vacant blue hospital room, waiting to be made up for the next patient. Two medium-sized brown boxes are stacked by the door.

My heart does this weird little flip. “It almost looks like—are you moving?”

“No, I just cleared some things out. Giving a few things to Goodwill.”

“Are you feeling okay?” I try not to sound like the blaming girlfriend.
Why won’t you spend time with me? Why won’t you call me back? Don’t you like me anymore?

“Sorry, Ultraviolet. I’m still feeling kind of under the weather. Which, when you think about it, is a very odd expression. One that finds its origins in the sea—as in a sailor or passenger feels seasick from the storm, and they send him below to get out of the bad weather.”

“But you’re better now?”

“It was touch-and-go for a while, but yeah.” He grins and pulls on a shirt. “Want to see my fort?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“Every man needs a fort, Ultraviolet. A place to let his imagination run wild. A ‘No Trespassing/No Girls Allowed’ type of space.”

“If no girls are allowed, why are you letting me see it?”

“Because you’re not just any girl.”

He opens the door to his closet, and it actually looks pretty cool. He’s made a kind of cave for himself, complete with guitar and computer and notebooks of staff paper, along with pens and stacks of Post-its. My picture is tacked to the blue wall along with a license plate.

“Other people might call it an office, but I like fort better.”

He offers me a seat on the blue comforter and we sit side by side, shoulder to shoulder, backs against the wall. He nods at the opposite wall, and that’s when I see the pieces of paper there, kind of like his Wall of Ideas, but not as many or as cluttered.

“So I’ve discovered I think better in here. It gets loud out there sometimes between Decca’s music and my mom yelling at my dad over the phone. You’re lucky you live in a house of no yelling.” He writes down
House of no yelling
and sticks it onto the wall. Then he hands me a pen and a pad of Post-its. “Want to try?”

“Just anything?”

“Anything. Positive ones go on the wall, negative on the floor over there.” He points to this heap of ripped-up paper. “It’s important to get those down, but they don’t need to hang around after you do. Words can be bullies. Remember Paula Cleary?” I shake my head. “She was fifteen when she moved to the States from Ireland and started dating some idiot guy the other girls loved. They called her ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ and worse and wouldn’t let her alone until she hanged herself in a stairwell.”

I write
Bully
and hand it to Finch, who rips it into a hundred
pieces and throws it on the heap. I write
Mean girls
and then shred it to bits. I write
Accidents, Winter, Ice,
and
Bridge,
and tear at the paper until it’s only dust.

Finch scribbles something and slaps it to the wall.
Welcome.
He scribbles something else.
Freak.
He shows it to me before destroying it. He writes
Belong,
which goes on the wall, and
Label,
which doesn’t.
Warmth, Saturday, Wander, You, Best friend
go up, while
Cold, Sunday, Stand still, Everyone else
go into the heap.

Necessary, Loved, Understood, Forgiven
are on the wall now, and then I write
You, Finch, Theodore, Theo, Theodore Finch,
and post them up.

We do this for a long time, and then he shows me how he makes a song out of the words. First he rearranges them into a kind of order that almost makes sense. He grabs the guitar and strums out a tune and, just like that, starts singing. He manages to get every word in, and afterward I clap and he bows with the top half of his body since he’s still sitting on the floor, and I say, “You have to write it down. Don’t lose it.”

“I don’t ever write songs down.”

“What’s all that staff paper there?”

“Ideas for songs. Random notes. Things that’ll become songs. Things I might write about someday, or started once but didn’t finish because there wasn’t enough in them. If a song’s meant to stay around, you carry it with you in your bones.”