Crazy

To: condorboy

Subject:

Shit. ShitshitshitshitshitshitSHIT. Every time I think things couldn’t possibly get any worse, I am proven wrong, I get a big, fat reminder saying, ISABEL, YOU’RE DOOMED. How could you possibly think you have anything good to hold on to? A sister you can trust? BULLSHIT. Now she’s the enemy too. Now she’s on their side, with her tricky Do you want to come over, Isabel? Do you want to have dinner with me and Karen tonight? And I naively think they’re asking because they’re the last two people on earth besides you who don’t hate me. I think maybe I can go over there and feel some peace for a second. Maybe I can sit on their couch and drink some tea and watch a movie and feel for a couple hours like the world isn’t falling apart and that maybe I have a place in it. But I’m asking too much. I AM ALWAYS ASKING TOO MUCH. And I’m sorry I’m yelling again but I can’t help it because NO ONE EVER LISTENS TO ME and you’re not listening to me, you’re probably off in the woods doing Ecstasy with some hot college girl who’s giving you a massage while she purrs about how reading Derrida has changed her life, and these words I’m writing are just going to some sad, mysterious place where unread emails go to die.

She’s on their side now. My beloved sister has forsaken me too. It was all planned and choreographed and scripted and rehearsed like some crappy reality show where the only point is to humiliate some dumb, unsuspecting schmuck who doesn’t know what’s coming. And everyone watching at home is laughing their pants off, everyone’s making bets on what’s going to happen when she finds out she’s been punked and then totally loses it on national television. Will she start crying? Will she scream? Will she get violent? Will she become still and silent and slowly quiver her way into a straightjacket?

Just so you know, if you ever want to be COMPLETELY DEAD TO ME, all you have to say are these simple words: “Mom wanted me to talk to you.” That’s all you need to say to assure me you’ve officially become the enemy, that you’re doing her bidding and you’ve conspired behind my back. All you have to do is feed me spaghetti and wait until I’m sufficiently full and sleepy, then sit me down on the couch and say, “I have something I want to talk to you about.” And you want to know the saddest part? You want to know the part that’ll just make you cringe? For a second, my stomach flipped and I got a little tingly feeling in my skin, and I smiled, I actually smiled, because do you know what I thought she was going to say? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA? For a brief second before she became a traitor, I actually believed my sister was about to ask me to be her baby’s godmother. How incredibly pathetic is that?

Karen was in the kitchen doing the dishes and there we were, sitting in the living room, me with a stupid grin on my face because I had no idea I was about to be thrown under the bus. I was trying to hide how excited I was, preparing to stay calm after she popped the question. But as she opened her mouth, I saw it. I saw the look on her face that said she was scared, that this was not going to be good news, that she was about to break my heart. And then she said it. “Mom wanted me to talk to you.” And I only heard snippets of what she said after that, words and phrases like daggers one after another after another after another.

You’ve been acting strange, Isabel. Your behavior has been erratic. Problems at school. The stunt with the fire. The cops. Is it drugs, Isabel? You can tell me if it’s drugs. We can get you help. Why don’t you let us help you?

Us. She said US. She is in a unit with them now. US is not me and her anymore. Us means THEM now. And I’ve been thrown into the category with my brother. They think I’m as bad as the heroin addict locked up in the mountains.

So I left. I just grabbed my stuff and walked out the door. Gennifer tried to stop me, kept trying to tell me she loved me and was trying to help, but all her words bounced off of me. Karen came in and said, “Where are you going?” and I just shrugged. Where could I go? I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere except school and home and my sister’s condo, and now I only had two of those places left. My world is getting smaller and smaller, and pretty soon I’ll lose everything, I’ll destroy every single thing I have until all I’ll have is a rock to stand on, a little speck of dirt, and then even that will disintegrate and I’ll be left with nothing.

They kept talking and I kept leaving, and I could hear Gennifer getting on the phone to call my parents, her new allies, and I walked out the door and shut it calmly behind me and got in my car and put on my seat belt and drove the ten minutes home clenching every muscle in my body, and I think I was breathing, I must have been breathing, but I don’t remember there being any air, any movement inside me. I pulled up outside my house and got out and locked the door and walked inside and didn’t even look at my parents who were standing in the living room waiting for me, didn’t raise my head to look them in the eyes, barely heard their “Your sister was worried about you. She didn’t think you were coming home. Isabel. Talk to us. Isabel. Where are you going?” and I just went where I always go, to my little box where I don’t bother anyone. And as soon as I closed the door behind me, all the sounds and pain I’d been avoiding came rushing out of me and I couldn’t hold on anymore, I couldn’t hold on, and I melted onto the ground and everything came out, the air and tears and pain and heartbreak, and it sounded like something deflating, it sounded like Esteban’s mother in Ecuador, screaming at God for taking the only good thing she had left in this empty, dirty world.

I don’t know how long I stayed on the floor like that, how loud I was crying, if my mouth was forming words or sentences, if anyone came in or out or tried to soothe me. All I know is I woke up covered with a blanket and with a pillow under my head, with my throat sore and my eyes puffy and stinging, bruises on the palms of my hands where my nails dug in. There was a bottle of water, a glass of juice, a banana and a muffin sitting on my desk. I am trying to eat the banana as I type this to you. But every time I try to swallow I feel like I’m going to throw up. And something about that just seems so devastating, the fact that I can’t even feed myself, that my body hates me so much it doesn’t even want to let me eat.

Connor, please write me back. I just need to know you still exist.

Love,
Iz