Unravelling

Nick is with me, sitting next to me, holding my hand and talking about some time when he was a little kid and he fell off his bike. His dad was trying to teach him to ride, but since his dad isn’t patient or good at teaching anything, Nick fell.

I listen to him, to his story, and I try to focus on all the details—like the fact that it was a black-and-red Transformers bike his mom had bought custom-made down in Pacific Beach, and that his dad was really angry at him for falling and wanted him to get right back onto the bike. I know he’s just trying to help, so I swallow down the temptation to snort and say, You fell off your bike? I just got hit by a truck!

It’s weird, though. As he talks, I feel off—like I’m spacing out. I can’t help but think of Ben Michaels hovering over me, his hands on my skin, the way he said my name. The unflinching certainty that I was dead and now I’m not—and it’s because of Ben. Somehow, he brought me back to life.

Someone squeezes my hand, so I open my eyes—when did I close them?—and Nick smiles at me. He really is beautiful, but I honestly can’t remember how Nick even got here. Did he come in the ambulance with me? Or did he follow in his car?

“Janelle?” Nick asks. “Janelle, are you okay?”

He stands up and grips my hand too hard, and a wave of nausea rolls through me. He says something else, but I don’t hear him.

A nurse leans over me and shines a flashlight in my eyes. She turns and says something to someone close to her—not Nick. I’m not sure where he went. The nausea turns to cramps, and I just want to curl my knees into my chest and lie alone in the dark. But when I try to do that, someone grips my legs.

People yell at each other, and the whole room sounds fuzzy until I hear Alex. I can’t concentrate on who he’s talking to or what he’s saying, but I can tell by the cadence of his voice that it’s him. I want to ask when he got here and if my brother is okay. But my mouth doesn’t work, and his voice sounds farther and farther away.

My muscles uncoil and relax again, but I’m struggling to catch my breath, almost wheezing.

Something pinches my arm, and a steady warmth begins to spread through my body. Heaviness sets in. Hands let go of me, and I can’t hold myself up anymore. I slump down but fight to keep my eyes open. I wonder where Alex went.

Only I must say that out loud, because then he’s standing over me. “Just relax. You had a seizure, but you’re fine.”

“Alex.” I try to grab his arm, but my hand just flops around.

Because he speaks my language, he says, “Jared’s fine. I took him to polo and called your dad.”

And then he leans down so I can whisper in his ear. “At Torrey, the Jeep . . .”

“What happened to your car?” Nick asks, his face hovering above me.

Thankfully Alex hushes him and pushes him away as I close my eyes. “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.”

There was something I wanted to tell him. Something important.

“Wait,” I whisper before he goes away. “Alex . . . I died.”

“Shh,” he whispers back, and I picture him shaking his head. “You’re going to be fine, Janelle. You’re going to be fine.”

The worst thing about coming back to life isn’t, believe it or not, how physically painful it is. Don’t get me wrong—even though all my bones seem to be working just fine, they feel like they were broken into tiny pieces. My body is stiff, it aches with a steady, throbbing consistency, and I’m having a hard time making it obey me the way it should.

But worse is the hollowness.

It makes sense, really. I just looked into the great expanse of nothingness, had a moment—no matter how quickly it passed—to think about what my seventeen years add up to, and the dominant emotion staring back at me now is regret.

It’s not that I haven’t accomplished things. It’s not that the people I leave behind won’t remember me. It’s not even that I’m young and there was so much more I wanted to experience—so much more I wanted to do.

It’s the realization that I was practically dead already.

It’s that for the past I don’t know how many years, I’ve moved through life stuffed with straw, hollow and unfeeling. Day after day passed, and I went through the motions and focused on the mundane because the significant was too hard. I had conversations about schoolwork, weather, laundry, groceries, even sports, because things like quitting swimming, losing my best friend, getting drugged at a party, watching my mother’s mood swings slowly kill her, watching my father give up on her—on us—all threatened to unleash a floodgate.

I go out with a guy who, when he’s being serious, is interesting and funny and sort of sweet. We get along well enough, too, but if I’m really honest with myself, I don’t see a future with him. I can’t even see us together when school starts, let alone see myself trying to date him long-distance or go visit him when he’s in college. And I know we just started dating, but isn’t that what I should be imagining if I was really into him—isn’t that part of the reason why people start dating? Yet I choose to date him rather than hold out for someone I could love. Why? Because his ex-girlfriend’s a bitch? Because he’s pretty? Because it feels good to be liked? Because I don’t want to date someone I really care about since it will hurt more when it ends? Since I’d have to try?

How can I ever dare to meet my own eyes again? I can’t. Not even in dreams.

That night, in a drug-induced sedation, I dream my brother is crying, and instead of my dad teasing Jared to “man up” like he always does, I hear his voice, even and soothing. I can’t quite catch what he’s saying at first. Then Jared sniffs, and my father says, Your sister’s so tough, it’s frightening. That girl will outlive us all.

I dream about Ben Michaels hovering over me, somehow bringing me back from the dead.

And I dream about a doctor and two nurses looking at my X-rays. They stand right near my bed, the X-rays up in the light box. One of the nurses leaves as the doctor points to something on the image.

The doctor and remaining nurse whisper to each other.

The nurse comes back, and she’s brought another doctor with her. The four of them gesture to the X-ray, their voices floating through the room.

It looks like her backbone and spinal cord were completely severed and fused back together.

An old injury, maybe?

Maybe she had surgery?

Nothing in her medical history.

They sigh.

It doesn’t . . . it doesn’t look like an old injury . . . and even if it was . . . I’m not sure how anyone would be able to walk after an injury like that.

She’s lucky she isn’t paralyzed.

Lucky? It’s a miracle she’s even alive.

“She should rest,” Dr. Abrams tells him. “Stay off her feet, no physical exertion—”

“You said she hasn’t had any more seizures after the first one,” my dad says.

Dr. Abrams nods and explains why it’s important to keep an eye on me anyway.

To anyone else, it would look like my dad is listening respectfully and absorbing the details. I know better. He tugs on his left ear, which means he’s annoyed and running low on patience. He asks specific questions that suggest more medical knowledge than he has, which means he’s shown my test results and chart to someone at the Bureau, probably a medical examiner.

I don’t exactly care, though, that my dad has been giving everyone in the hospital a hard time. I’ve got more important things to focus on. Like what the hell Ben Michaels did to me. It’s just about all I’ve been able to think about since I woke up. I tried to have the conversation several times—where I said, “Alex, I died,” and he patted me like a two-year-old and basically said,

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I roll my head to the side to look at Jared. “What’s up, dude? You gonna tell me what happened to your hand?”

His right hand looks slightly bruised. I reach out, touching his knuckles. He winces. “What happened?” I whisper.

“I tried to punch Alex,” Jared says with a shrug. But he at least has the decency to drop his eyes and look embarrassed. “He’s fine, though.”

I made Alex take self-defense classes with me the summer before sophomore year. We always joked that if a guy attacked us, Alex would duck and I would knee the guy in the balls. (There’s a rumor I’m the reason Dave Kotlar only has one testicle now, but it’s a total lie. I have no idea what he did to himself, but since he hasn’t made any big attempts to dispel the rumors, it must be way more embarrassing than getting beat up by a girl.)

So I know if my brother—who’s never been in a fight in his life—tried to throw a punch at Alex, my best friend would do what he’s best at. He would duck.

“You were in the hospital, dying for all he knew, and Alex took me to polo.”

“Um, because I asked him to. Alex is well trained.”

Jared doesn’t smile like I want him to.

“Jared—”

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter,” he huffs. “I missed anyway.”

I open my mouth to try to explain, but I realize that would mean explaining my friendship with Alex, and I don’t know how to explain something that’s just always existed. He’s lived two doors down from me my whole life. Once upon a time, our moms took us to playgroups together, swimming lessons, even dance classes.

But Jared knows that. What he doesn’t know is that Alex has been helping me deal with our mother’s illness and cover up her drinking since Jared was too young to know there was a problem. Or that our friendship has survived because Alex listens to me. Because Alex knows that supporting me means tackling obstacles my way—head-on. And I don’t know how to explain that Alex is the only reason I’ve been able to stay sane while Dad worked and I had to be a parent—the only reason Jared has been able to do things like play water polo.

Which is why Alex, despite how much he would have been freaking out on the inside, would have taken Jared to polo like it was just another normal day.

But by the time I have all that sorted out in my head, Jared has started telling me about his first (half) day of school— freshman orientation.

“After the assembly and the tour, I went to my first two classes—”

“What do you have?”

He frowns at me. “Biology and ENS. But the cool part was, after I came out of ENS, Nick and Kevin were waiting for me.”

Exercise Nutritional Science is a glorified gym class all freshmen have to take, but more importantly . . . “Nick and Kevin were on campus?”

Jared nods. “They brought three pizzas from Uncle Vinnie’s for me and my friends, and we all sat and ate, and they told stories about their freshman year. It was awesome.”

“Awesome?” I ask, even though I don’t need to. Anyone getting attention from the two most popular seniors at East-view would be glowing a little. If Nick and Kevin were here, I would hug them—even Kevin—because I want my brother to be happy more than anything. And he’ll probably be over the moon all week.

“Yeah, did you know they had English together their freshman year? Nick said Kevin used to lean back in his chair all the time. And every day their teacher would say, ‘Mr. Collins, don’t lean back in your chair, please,’ and he’d say, ‘Okay,’ but then he’d do it anyway.”

I am not at all surprised by this story.

“And then one day when Kevin was hitting on this hot girl in his class, he leaned back just a little too far and he fell over. But it didn’t matter because the girl he liked went out with him that weekend anyway.”

Again, I’m not surprised.

“And Kevin said they used to jump up and touch the overhang whenever they were coming down the library steps. They’d even run, jump, hit the ledge, and then jump down the rest of the stairs, but near the end of freshman year, they both did it one time, only when they jumped, Nick fell and got a concussion.”

I can easily picture Kevin and Nick jumping down the library steps and somehow managing to wipe out. “What about the rest of your classes?”

He shrugs, obviously less interested. “I have ceramics and then English with Sherwood.”

I wince at the name of his English teacher. Jared will never be able to write an essay if I don’t get him out of there.

“Yeah, Kevin took one look at my schedule and told me to run for the hills.”

“He did?” This time I am surprised—in a good way.

Jared nods. “He and Nick said I should fill out a schedule change request to be bumped into honors. So I did that before Nick drove me home.”

I’m suddenly not sure whether I should be pleased or worried about the interest Nick is taking in my brother. On the one hand, I can’t believe he convinced him to take an honors class, and I’m undoubtedly in their debt for getting Jared to actually follow directions and get out of Sherwood’s class—anyone who doubts that there’s something wrong with public education in this country just needs to sit in her class for a day to know—but what will happen to Jared if Nick and I break up?

“All right, J-baby, you ready?” my dad says before I can think of a way to explain that to my brother.

“I’d really prefer if you didn’t call me that in public,” I say as I slide out of the hospital bed and into the wheelchair they’ve brought for me.

My dad smiles because he knows I don’t really mean it, and Jared slips in behind me, half pushing, half hopping. My back is stiff and my leg muscles are still sore, but I could feel worse—I could be dead.

Also, I’ll be back at school this week. So will Ben Michaels. And I plan on figuring out exactly what happened.

“What’s for dinner tonight?” Jared asks. “Something we can get delivered,” I say at the same time my dad says, “I asked Struz to pick up some Chinese.”

“Sweet!” Jared says. “You think he’ll get that awesome spicy kung pao chicken? I haven’t had that in forever. Or, oh—call him and tell him to get the special General Tso’s!”

Ryan Struzinski, aka Struz, has been working with my dad for ten years. He’s in his thirties now, I think, but he’s really an overgrown kid with a superhero complex. It’s why he and my dad get along so well. Knowing Struz, he’ll order the whole left side of the menu. “Don’t worry, Jared. Something tells me we’ll have enough food.”

“What about egg rolls? And fortune cookies. He’d better get a shitload of them.”

Jared is still running down the list of Chinese food he’s hoping for—that kid can eat his way through anything—when we get outside. My dad’s car is parked in the fire lane—shocking. Even less shocking is the collection of file boxes that he has to move to squeeze both Jared and my wheelchair into the backseat—no doubt because he’s going to work late into the night. Just like he would any other night. Tonight he’ll just have to work at home.

“You and Struz planning to Mulder and Scully it after Chinese tonight?” I ask as I slide my seat belt on. My dad has every season of The X-Files on DVD. When we were little, instead of Saturday morning cartoons, Jared and I had Saturday morning X-Files marathons.

“Dude, have you found the unit that hunts aliens yet?” Jared asks.

My dad chuckles. “Not yet, but don’t worry. I won’t give up. Hunting aliens is the reason I joined the FBI, after all.” This is actually not a lie. Of course, the truth is that there isn’t a unit that actually hunts aliens. There aren’t enough creepy cases that point to aliens or unsolved paranormal mysteries to assign to even one guy in a basement.

“The truth is out there,” Jared says with a laugh.

“I want to believe,” I add, because that’s my line. Yes, I am aware how lame we are.

“Trust no one,” my dad says, trying to make his voice sound ominous.

“Believe the lie!” Jared shouts.

I let the two of them continue to volley taglines back and forth during the ride home. I jump in occasionally when there’s a lull and Jared is trying to remember a good quote, but mostly I think about the same thing I’ve thought about the whole two days I spent lounging around the hospital. I think of Ben Michaels—of the fact that I was dead and now I’m not. Because all that X-Files stuff is only entertaining until it hits too close to home. Right now none of it is as strange as Ben Michaels bringing me back from the dead.

As my dad turns off the car, I gesture to the wheelchair. “We can just leave that in the car. I’m fine.”

“J-baby, are you—”

“Dad. I’m fine.”

Jared jumps in front of us and unlocks the front door, and my dad is about to say something when the sound of glass breaking makes all three of us freeze.

And for almost as long as I can remember, I’ve learned to do the same.

My mother is bipolar. And at present, she’s not exactly functioning.

When I was seven, during one of her manic episodes, she stopped taking her meds, pulled both Jared and me out of school, and drove us up the coast—at least twenty miles over the speed limit, with the windows down—all day and into the night, until we stopped at the Northern California border and got a hotel room. We stayed up late, jumped on the beds, had a popcorn fight, and laughed until our stomachs cramped.

By the next morning she’d come down and wouldn’t get out of bed. We were holed up in our room at the Anchor Beach Inn in Crescent City, California, with the curtains drawn and the lights turned off, while she slept it off for two days before my dad found us and brought us home.

After that, my mom and dad fought—about her medicine, about Jared and me, about how much she slept and how much he worked, about her medication and his inability to express his feelings, about her spontaneity and his rigid schedule, about everything. They fought all the time—days, weeks, months, years. Until at some point—and I can’t remember when— the fighting stopped, she started drinking herself into a self-medicating coma, and our house just fell . . . silent.

And Jared and I were on our own.

My dad shakes his head. “I can do it. You just—”

“I’m okay—promise,” I say, giving him my best I’m fine! smile. “She’ll want to see me anyway, and you have to bring in the boxes.” I don’t wait for a response. Both Jared and my dad are secretly happy to let me do the honors, even if they won’t tell themselves that.

I slip into her bedroom and pull the door shut behind me, carefully enough so it doesn’t make a sound as it latches. Her bedroom is cloaked in darkness. The combination of the thick shade and the heavy velour drapes pulled tightly over the picture window blocks out every speck of light, and I have to pause and let my eyes adjust. If I didn’t know it was summer and the sun hadn’t yet set outside, I’d think it was the middle of the night. More disturbing is the stale smell of the air—like old, wet newspaper and mold. The recorded sound of rain plays softly on repeat, and I hear her grunt as soft light floods the bathroom.

I ignore the clothes and bedsheets strewn all over the room and breathe through my mouth as I move to the bathroom.

“Mom?” I ask. I hesitate before I open the door, like I always do. Because I’m afraid of what I might see on the other side. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, fine, just fine,” she answers as the faucet turns on. I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding and push open the door.

Her wild hair is standing on end, black against the paleness of her skin. Under her T-shirt and shorts, I can see the bones sticking out at her joints in all the wrong places, and when her eyes meet mine in the mirror, I’m struck with the image of her I remembered when I was dying—and how it should be some sort of crime for God to let a woman like that turn into someone like this.