For a second, I didn’t know where I was in time. It was a feeling I knew well—but it’d never felt quite like this. The walls of the room wavered. My brain doubted my eyes. And my heart started banging in my chest, thumping against my ribs like they were a cage it could escape from.
Was that really Jordan Hassan, standing there gaping at me in the back of Greene Street Books?
It was.
Whether he was here because of coincidence, design, or miracle, I couldn’t begin to guess.
You’re here. You’ve come back.
I stared at him, cataloguing the changes made by seven years of life. He seemed taller and broader, but his hair still fell over his face and into his agate eyes. And his smile, when it emerged, was exactly like I remembered it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing that everyone in the crowd was staring at us while we stared at each other. “It’s not every day that a person’s past suddenly pops up in their present.” I glanced down at my book, like I was about to start reading again. I should, shouldn’t I? But then I realized this was a moment I had to reach out and grab on to.
“Everyone,” I said, “this is Jordan Hassan. He knew me when I was down—way down.” I laughed nervously. “He was my friend and my confidante. And, to be honest, he really messed me up, too.”
Jordan was walking haltingly toward me, but then he stopped, with a look on his face like he wanted to say something. But the stage was mine and I meant to keep it that way.
“I wrote about Jordan,” I said. “And it’s almost like he leapt out of the pages of my book and into this store.” I shook my head in wonder. “I can’t believe it,” I said. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
“Me either,” he says. He throws up his hands. “And I can’t exactly explain it.”
“Like scientists still can’t explain the muon,” I said.
And Jordan laughs.
I knew he had wanted to save me. And I had wanted him to be able to.
But being mentally ill wasn’t like drowning, even if it sometimes felt like it. Because the thing about drowning is that someone else can save you, whether you want them to or not. And the thing about struggling with mental illness is that you have to be part of saving yourself.
“Anyway, why don’t you take a seat, Jordan Hassan,” I said lightly. “Listen. I think you might like this story.”
He did just as he was told. And then I smiled to the crowd of people who had come to hear me read from my book, and I started again from the beginning.