after

DECEMBER 2

It was Dewey that found me. He came over to use my Xbox and I wasn’t there. I guess he took me to the hospital, where they said things like nervous breakdown on top of selective retrograde amnesia. They ask me over and over again what I was doing, and I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t know.

Dad took me out of school and put me in therapy. I was supposed to go to therapy anyway, but I told him I could manage. I didn’t need to. We couldn’t afford it. We still can’t, really, but Dad is insistent, which he rarely is.

I don’t know how many times I tell him that I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I don’t know what I was doing. It doesn’t matter. I went to piss yesterday and caught my dad counting my pills.

I don’t get it. Why me?

Why the fuck is this happening to me?

It’s Tuesday, so we’re going to therapy again. Whatever is playing on the radio is shit, but I don’t change it. My dad drives with his shoulders up to his ears, but he doesn’t change it either. I guess it’s better than driving in silence. We don’t really remember how to talk to each other.

“How’s the online school going?” he tries at one point.

“Shitty,” I say. “Not that that’s any different than ever.”

On the first day, Dewey skipped school with me. We ordered pizza and played Metatron for fifteen hours straight. I woke up with a piece of pizza on my chest and a penis drawn on my upper lip. I picked up my controller again and died another sixty-seven times. I started jumping off bridges around level seventeen. There were too many bridges.

Dad gives a strained laugh. “That bad, huh?”

I shrug, and count the trees as they go by.

I get to ten, but that can’t be right.

“You started over a few times,” my dad says.

I guess I must have.

Dad walks me into the building and past the receptionist and hands me over to Dr. Taser, whose name is actually Taaser and pronounced something like “tosser.” I pretend not to remember when she tries to remind me.

“Micah!” she says as I walk in. She looks like antiseptic and smells like too much perfume. My dad stands in the doorway and they talk in low voices about me, and I sit on the couch.

“He’s struggling today,” I hear my dad say. “It’s been a hard week.”

They notice me watching. My dad leaves, and Dr. Taser closes the door.

“Do you need anything, Micah?” she asks. Her teeth are too white. “Water? Coffee?”

“I’m fine,” I say.

“All right, then,” she says. She’s still smiling. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without a smile. “So tell me about—”

“My week was fine,” I say. I count the ceiling tiles while I talk. Twenty down, thirteen across. I think. “I like my new online classes. Yes, I think it helps me relax to not be in public education eight hours a day. Yes, I know that my dad wants to be there for me more but can’t. Yes, I know you think Dewey is a great friend. Yes, I know where I am. Yes, I know I will be okay.”

She flounders. That was supposed to take the entire hour. This is my third session, but she’s predictable as hell. How do you feel today? How do you feel right now? How do you fucking feel?

She clears her throat and taps something into her iPad. “I’m glad to hear that, Micah. Do you think you might want to talk more about Janie today?”

Janie? Janie is sprawled on the couch, pushing me into the armrest. Her head is in my lap and her hair spills everywhere. I am careful not to touch it. Her eyes are almost colorless and they bore into mine.

“No,” I say.

“Maybe we can start with something easy? A happy memory. You must have so many of those.”

“So many,” Janie echoes. Her hand traces slow circles on my kneecap. “Us. You and me, Micah. You and me.”

I swallow. “Stop,” I whisper. “Stop.”

I know she isn’t here. I know she isn’t real.

And yet her fingertip on my knee, shifting and feather light, is the only thing that keeps me grounded.

“A happy memory, Micah,” Dr. Taser prompts.

“The old mental hospital,” Janie whispers. She sits up and places her lips by my ear. Her breath is warm in my hair. “Veet in Carson Eber’s shampoo. Condom balloons in Stephen Mackelry’s locker. Counting rocks at the Metaphor. Come on, Micah. You can choose anything.”

Rocks at the Metaphor.

Janie counting the rocks at the Metaphor because she was sure they were disappearing. Counting, counting. Ten, over and over again. Rows of ten.

I remember the rest.

Four weeks and two days before our birthday. It was September 10. We went on a Wednesday that week—I don’t remember why. Her parents kept texting her to go home, and she couldn’t wait until she was eighteen and didn’t have to listen. Four weeks and two days.

“I think the Metaphor is getting smaller,” she said, and sat up. Her hair brushed my wrist. “I’m sure, Micah. We have to count the rocks. And again next week. And if there’s less next week, we’ll know.”

She walked to the Metaphor and sat at its base. She looked up and her face looked like prayer for a moment before she began to count.

“One,” she said, putting one aside. “The number of balls Hitler had.”

“Ball,” I corrected. “And I don’t think that’s actually true.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s true,” she said. “People believe it. That’s all that matters. Two. The number of times you’ve actually let me drive you somewhere. I can’t believe you’re walking back. Just let me drive you.”

“Um, no,” I said. “I’m not getting into your car.”

“Why? I have candy!”

“I don’t want to die, that’s why. Janie, you were supposed to be driving slow and you still almost killed a fourth grader just now. I’m not getting in your car.”

“Whatever,” she said. “Your loss. Are you going to help me count or what?”

I kind of just wanted to lie there, but then she threw a pebble at my forehead and said, “Count!” So I rubbed my forehead and sat up, and picked up a rock.

“Three,” I said. “Um. Uh. Three. The number of, um, wishes in a lamp?”

“God, Micah, you’re so lame,” she said.

“Yeah, I know,” I said.

She started to reach for a rock, but she stopped when I said that. Her head tilted to the left, just a bit. She stared at me for a long moment, and then she sucked half of her lip into her mouth and chewed on it before she said, “You’re not really, you know.”

“Jeez, Janie, I was just kidding—”

“You’re not lame. You’re—you’re, just, like, a decent human being, you know?”

“Wow,” I say. “High praise right there.”

“No, I mean . . .” She huffed out a breath. “Like most people aren’t, you know? Not really. They just pretend when they’re at school and in public, but they’re not actually good. They just want people to think they are. But you—you just are. You actually are.”

I scratched my head so she couldn’t see that I was blushing. “Okay, so are you going to count the rocks or what?”

And the moment passed. But I kept thinking about it.

She threw another rock at me. “Six. The number of pieces of pizza I ate the first time we ordered here,” she said.

“You skipped four and five.”

“I threw two at you.” She threw another one. It bounced off the rim of my glasses. “There. Now you have to start at eight.”

“Okay,” I said. “Eight. The number of pieces I ate before I threw up.”

“Oh, god, don’t talk about it. Don’t don’t don’t.”

“Nine,” I said, “the number of seagulls that showed up to eat it.”

“Micah, stop. I’m going to throw up.”

She stopped asking me to help after that. She put them in rows of ten, squares of a hundred. She got to six hundred before she gave up. We stretched out and she fell asleep and her hair smelled of lemons and the sun burned us bright, and I thought about what she said. That I was a good person. That she was not.

“Micah? Micah, just breathe for me, okay? It’s all right.”

Fingers on my knee, circling. Hands on my back, patting. Here, now. I take a deep breath and blink. Dr. Taser stands over me, and she is no longer smiling.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. I know where I am. I’m in your office, and I’m fine.”

Janie traces letters on my knee.

LIAR

THE JOURNAL OF JANIE VIVIAN

Once upon a time, there was a princess, and she had a plan. She was going to a ball. She planned for weeks and weeks—she made a dress and borrowed a carriage and found a back door that no one looked after. Sometimes things went wrong, but there were always miracles, trees that gave her golden dresses and fairy godmothers who gave her glass shoes.

On the night of the ball, the princess sneaked out of the house and went to the castle, where there were beautiful ladies and stacks of cakes and lots and lots of vodka. There was also a prince made of angel parts and perfect, perfect teeth.

The prince took her hand and they danced the night away. Everyone cheered for them.

There was only one part of her plan that could not be fixed by fairy godmothers or magic trees. She had to leave by midnight, or things would start going wrong. She watched the clock all night and counted the minutes, but when the clock struck twelve, the prince spun her in a circle and kissed her hard.

She let him. She ignored whatever timeline she had in mind because he was a prince made of angel parts, and things couldn’t go too wrong around him.

Right?