Whisper to Me (17 page)

“Oh yeah. I go to the library all the time. Get books to read on my breaks at the plush warehouse. I kind of make a throne of stuffed toys and sit in there with a book. And Jane—she’s amazing, isn’t she? So smart.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And beautiful. She’s one of those girls, she doesn’t know how beautiful she is. I always thought that was crap. The beautiful girls I’ve met, they
always
know it. But then I came here.”

I felt some structure move inside my stomach, like there was a part of my anatomy mounted on a gimbal I hadn’t even known about, able to revolve. Of course you would be attracted to Jane. Why wouldn’t you? She was super intelligent and interesting, and hot, with her dyed hair and her tattoos and her ironic T-shirts.

I half expected that the voice would say something then. Something about me being nothing, me being beneath his attention, pathetic, a ****** disgrace, all the things the voice so often said. But it said nothing.

And then I remembered: the voice didn’t speak when you were there. It seemed like it was really true.

“Hmm,” I said, which along with “what?” was becoming something of a catchphrase for me.

You could see I was upset, I think. I don’t know what it was—just the mere idea of Jane, who had betrayed me, or the fact that you called her beautiful. You lifted the book again. The awkwardness surfaced between us, smooth gray back of a whale breaching the water. “Anyway … back to Pygmalion,” you said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“See you around,” you said.

“Uh-huh.”

Then you got into your pickup and drove away.

I am only telling you this, from my side, because I get it now.

I do.

Jane didn’t betray me. She helped me.

And you weren’t talking about Jane, were you? I have always been good at reading, but I have never been good at reading between the lines. When you said that thing, about her being one of those girls who doesn’t know how beautiful they are. You were talking about me, weren’t you? I think, maybe, you were. And I was thinking how you were crushing on Jane, and meanwhile you were probably thinking
I’m really obviously flirting with Cass and she’s just constantly knocking me back.

Sorry.

I wish I’d been more perspicacious.

I wish I could reach into time, to its secret levers and wheels, and turn it back to that afternoon, so that I would get it, what you were saying, and not hurt you. Because it must have hurt you, when I seemed so standoffish at the end, didn’t it?

Of course, I hurt you much worse than that, later.

        
2.    ACCEPTANCE. Acknowledge your voice as real, both a real part of yourself and a manifestation of your feelings about yourself.

This was not easy, but I tried, and it did make a kind of sense to me.

For example: when I got back to my room after talking to you about Ovid, about Jane. The voice said,

“He doesn’t see you. Just as you deserve.”

“Who?”

The voice laughed. “Like you don’t know. You are invisible to him. You are worthless. He sees only Jane.”

I cried then. I wish I could say I was strong and always stood up to the voice, but I didn’t.

“He invited me to go see the plush warehouse,” I said.

“He is being polite,” said the voice. “You are a piece of nothing shaped like a person. You are Echo, after she dies, speaking only the words of Narcissus back to him. You may as well be dead.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Please. Don’t say that.”

“I will say what I please.”

“I can make you go away, you know,” I said.

“Oh yes? How?”

I flicked on the radio, turned the dial to find static. But I wasn’t fast enough. I caught a snippet of conversation—
the Houdini Killer appears to have struck yet again, with local prostitute Shayna Jennings reported missing two nights ago, only a week after—

I kept turning the dial, let the words sink into:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

But I couldn’t keep it up forever. Eventually I had to turn it off, and the voice was waiting. The voice was always waiting.

“See what you did?”

“What?”

“You let another girl die. You failed. You were supposed to be finding him, right? The Houdini Killer? But what have you done? You’ve done NOTHING.”

“What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to—”

“You’re supposed to TRY.”

“I …” I shook my head. I felt like I really was going crazy. “Why me? Who do I have to—”

“BECAUSE YOU’RE LETTING THEM DIE. BECAUSE OTHERWISE HE GETS AWAY WITH IT. Don’t you see? Just like the guy who killed your—”

“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP.”

Silence.

Then, a voice like a gust of cold arctic air, frost hanging in it, crystals, capable of getting into the lungs, into the ears and freezing you from the inside out.

“Wash your face,” it said. “Ten times. Maybe if you deal with those zits he will be more interested. Maybe it will make you less disgusting.”

Yeah.

At times like those, I thought maybe Dr. Lewis was right. I mean, I looked in the mirror, in my bathroom—the en suite that Dad had made for me when we moved in—and I saw two pimples, one on my cheek and one on my chin.

And I felt disgusted by myself when I saw them.

So even though there was a part of me that still thought the voice might be supernatural, might be some kind of ghost or something, I could see the logic of the Doc’s position.

I.e.: everything the voice was saying was really what
I
was saying. My own hatred of myself, my own desire to punish myself, to make myself pay—

And then my thoughts would stop, would come to a brick wall that didn’t let them go any further, a barricade in my memories. I know what it is, now, that barricade.

But I didn’t then. I genuinely didn’t.

Anyway, yes, I could see that maybe the voice was me. I mean, I could understand it intellectually, as an abstract concept.

It was the concrete aspect I had difficulty with.

That is: the voice
was not my voice
. It was someone else’s voice, a woman’s, and I heard it through my ears. You have
no idea
what that feels like, when you hear a real voice that seems to be from outside you, and it hates you too.

At least, I hope you don’t.

“Wash your face again.”

“You said ten times.”

“Again.”

I looked at myself in the mirror. The dark circles were gone from beneath my eyes, but the pimples were like the size of the moon, blotting out my whole face, they were so enormous.

Disgusting
, I thought.

But Dr. Lewis had made me believe I could control this thing, at least. Even if it was hard. So at the same time I was thinking about the next precept, the one about dialogue and conciliation. “If I do, can I read a bit of a book?”

“What book?”

“I don’t know. The one Jane gave me.”

“That *****? You want to read her book?”

“It’s not hers. It’s the library’s. It’s by Haruki Murakami. He’s Japanese.”

“The ***** called your dad, and he took you to the hospital, and that’s where they killed me again with those pills. I already died once and you did NOTHING to stop it. Then she killed me again.”

I closed my eyes. “Please,” I said.

ALL TOGETHER NOW:

“No,” said the voice.

        
3.    DIALOGUE AND CONCILIATION. Welcome the voice, instead of ignoring it or telling it to shut up. Encourage more positive interaction and negotiation.

I’ve touched on this already. And the weird thing is, it
did
kind of work. Not right away, but it did.

So:

I was sitting on my bed, the room full of red morning light. The room was spotless. Here’s something freaky: I really liked that. I mean, it was the voice that had me always cleaning up after myself, but I had come to realize I enjoyed the feeling of space and order.

This, essentially, is what the Doc meant about the voice being part of me.

Anyway. I was sitting there feeling half-awake. This must have been a week and a half after I started seeing the Doc? Maybe. I was in my
SEAL TEAM 5 EATS SHARKS FOR BREAKFAST
T-shirt of Dad’s that I always slept in.

From downstairs, the smell of bacon came creeping up, I visualized it like tendrils of vapor, reaching out for me, luring me. Dad, cooking for me. It was how he showed his love. He’d also been very noticeably keeping his temper under control, never lashing out like he used to, never hitting things. That must have taken a lot of effort because Dad was an
angry
person.

Mom’s … Mom’s death made him that way.

The voice said,

“No bacon for you if you don’t clean your ******* room.”

“It’s clean!”

“Clean it again. And then clean your bathroom.”

I took a deep breath and thought about the steps. “Hello,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t greet you properly. How are you?”

Silence.

“Are you okay? I didn’t hear you last night, and I worried about you.”

Silence.

“It’s good to hear you again anyway.”

Silence. But a pregnant one. I could
sense
the voice there, invisibly breathing.

“Clean,” it said finally.

“With pleasure,” I said.

Then I thought:
negotiation
.

“If I clean extra well, can I read some of my book?”

“What book?”

“The novel.”

“The one the ***** gave you.”

I held my tongue. “She is a *****, we have established that. But if I clean, can I read a chapter?”

Silence.

“Can I?”

“No.”

“It’s just a book.”

“Yeah, and that boy in the apartment
just
broke your heart when he turned his sights on that ****** ***** ******.”

“He didn’t
break my heart.
Please. I’m not some princess in a story. I’m not, like, in love with him or anything. I barely know him.” Though even then, another voice in my head, not
the
voice but a little, quiet fantasizing voice, said,
He dreamed about you
.

“Yes. You are. I saw you looking at his arms. It’s pathetic.”

I tried to keep calm. “I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about the book. You want me to clean the bathroom. Fine. But then I want a chapter of my book.”