Negative Space

Chapter 1

It’s the only way. The words play over and over in my head, accompanied by the throbbing pressure in my temples. I sit against my bedroom wall, knees pulled tightly toward my chest, face buried in my arms. I am too exhausted to cry anymore.

Comfortably Numb creeps under my door and wraps itself around me in a suffocating embrace. Mom is self-medicating with music and marijuana in the living room, trying to block out what her perfect daughter has done.

I rise to my feet, ease open the bedroom door, and slide across the hall into the bathroom. I close the door and turn on the light. My iPod is still wedged into my back pocket, so I plug in and try to focus. The predictable synth-pop rhythm is a perfect counterpoint to my pulse.

The medicine cabinet is full of plastic bottles of all shapes and sizes: Cough syrup, Mom’s sleeping pills, antihistamines, antidepressants, Tylenol, muscle relaxants. I remove them one by one and line them up on the counter like a tiny army of plastic misfits.

Before I can change my mind, I turn the tap on to a steady dribble and fill the plastic cup beside the sink. I crouch on the floor, my back against the door. One bottle at a time, I count pills by tens into my narrow palm. I toss each handful into my mouth and take a sip of water. Sometimes I choke, but I keep going. Ingest, repeat.

By the time I get to the cough syrup, I feel drowsy, so I tip my head back and swallow the remaining half of the bottle in one revolting swig. I gag and almost regurgitate my efforts all over the floor, but I manage to force the evidence of my shame down.

I sink onto the cool linoleum. My body feels heavy and light at the same time—a stone angel. My fingers and toes tingle, and the room spins around me although my eyes are closed. I fumble for the charm bracelet on my left wrist and rub the tiny silver goddess between my thumb and forefinger.

Time passes. Minutes? Hours? Cramps in my gut force me to curl up like a baby returning to the womb. The door pushes against my bare feet. I have no energy to resist or move out of the way. It’s the only way.

Zoe? Are you in there? I hear my mom, but my eyelids are glued shut, and my tongue is too big for my mouth. I try to nod my head, but I’m paralyzed. Drool leaks out of my mouth and pools under my cheek. So I just wait.

The door rams open, and frantic hands try to pull me to my feet, but I slump back to the floor like a rag doll.

It’s too late. Please, just let me go.

Beyond redemption, I disappear into a silent, inky void.

Chapter 2

In the darkness, I’m assaulted by a vivid nightmare. I’m made of yards of scarlet ribbon, and someone is tugging on one end. I’m unraveling. As fast as I can reconstruct myself, an invisible monster lurking in the shadows is pulling me apart. As I disintegrate, my heart bursts out of my body and explodes into thousands of pieces of razor-sharp confetti and showers me with the deadly remains.

Terrified, I turn around to confront my assailant, but there’s no one there. I am suspended somehow in complete nothingness, floating, but unable to move.

This is how it feels to come undone.

Panic grips me as my life pools in a pile of tattered satin. I’m running out of time. I reach behind me and try to grab onto the loose end.

What I encounter is my own hand.

I am tearing myself apart.

Chapter 3

I regain consciousness in hell. There’s something stuck in my throat, choking me, making me gag, and there’s something blocking my nose as well. I swat at my face, trying to dislodge the foreign objects. My hand makes contact with a tube of some kind. I pull, and then I scream. While I thrash around, someone takes hold of my wrists and ties my arms down with some sort of restraints.

I must still be dreaming. I am pinned down, completely at the mercy of my captors, being tortured for crimes I have no memory of committing.

You need to settle down, Zoe. You’re not making this any easier on yourself.

No. I should be dead. The pain should be over.

I open my eyes and squint at the face attached to the gravelly voice. It’s a stout black woman with closely cropped hair. She’s wearing blue scrubs and a no-nonsense scowl. Through the searing pain in my head, I begin to understand, I begin to remember.

I deserve this.

I close my eyes again and try to control my senses, but every one of them is on overload. Instead of ending the chaos, the pills I took have enhanced every sound; every touch makes me cringe. I try to speak, to ask for water, but instead I retch, the tube hindering the passage of words from my mouth.

Relax, honey. That cocktail you mixed up almost shut your whole body down. You’re lucky to be alive. The nurse writes something down on a clipboard, shaking her head.

Suddenly, Mom is beside me. Why is she tied to the gurney? Jesus, she’s not a criminal! Her voice isn’t right. It’s hollow, like all her emotions have been drained away. But then her hand is on my cheek. I smell the jasmine of her lotion, feel the callouses on her fingertips, and I manage to take one deep, shuddering breath.

I did not choose to be here.

We’re almost finished. She tried to remove the lavage tube, the medical sadist replies.

Without warning, someone tugs the tube from my nose. It’s like I’m being mummified without the comfort factor of being dead. I’m pretty sure gray matter is draining out through my nostrils. Unwelcome tears stream down my cheeks as the tube is pulled slowly from inside me, until finally the burning stops. Mom’s usually flushed cheeks are drained of color. Her eyes are puffy and red.

Zoe, do you know where you are? the nurse asks, leaning in close.

Disneyland? I croak.

Try again.

Boulder, Colorado.

How about when?

April 6? I have no idea how long I was unconscious.

Close enough, she says.

There now. The worst is over, Mom says, in an uncharacteristically sympathetic voice. I nearly lost you. They sucked the poison out just in time. So much poison.

She’s so wrong. The worst isn’t over. I’m still here. She is so blind.

She reaches down and squeezes my hand, something she hasn’t done since I was a kid. I shrink back into the vinyl mattress, but I don’t resist her feeble attempt at support. It takes too much energy to fight.

The jarring opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth tell me that she’s getting a call from Danielle, my other mother.

I thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, but I was wrong.

Mom releases my hand and backs into the hallway, but I can still hear everything she says. Nothing about her is subtle.

If you’re ready to stop struggling, I can undo these, the nurse announces. I nod, and she unfastens the plastic restraints without waiting for me to respond. I’m concentrating on the long-distance altercation taking place in the hallway. I roll over on to my side and curl my legs up toward my chest. Everything hurts.

Being hurts.

"Yes, she’s going to be okay… No, no permanent damage. I don’t know. I was in the kitchen. I never thought… Don’t go there. Don’t you dare."

There is a muted thud, and the wall trembles, presumably as some part of Mom’s anatomy makes contact.

How the hell would I know? All she does is study. She never talks about friends, never goes out except to the library. She’s only seventeen, Danielle. What was she thinking? Mom is almost hysterical, sharing my story with strangers in the hall, ignoring me.

Silence.

I count to twenty. I haven’t seen Danielle in seven years, but I still remember her quiet, commanding tone. She’s the only one I know who can get Mom to shut up. She’s also the one who Mom still calls whenever there’s a major crisis. Danielle is stable, calm, reliable. Mom is not, so she uses Danielle when she can’t handle reality. I don’t know why Danielle even answers Mom’s calls.

Maybe you’re right. I don’t know what the hell to do with her.

Whatever Mom is agreeing to, it has to hurt. Since she and Danielle split up, they only talk when the world is threatening to end. Admitting Danielle is right about something portends doom. I try to mentally wade through the sludge in my brain, to fill in the blanks, but it’s impossible.

Let’s do it. School is over in a few weeks. It may give her space to get her head straight. And things will settle down here before she goes back in the fall.

Back to school? There is no way in hell I’m ever going back there. Without thinking, I sit bolt upright in bed. My body from the waist up protests, my internal organs throbbing and clenching in unnatural ways. Mom, I rasp, but there’s no way she will be able to hear me. I try to project, but it’s like I’ve permanently forfeited the right to speak. My throat burns like it’s been rubbed raw with sandpaper.

She’ll be here for a couple of days, and then the psych ward until they think it’s safe for her to go home.

Psych ward? I’m not insane. In fact, I’m intensely rational. I know what I tried to do, and I know that I failed. I never fail at anything.

She’s not going back to school before the end of the year. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to book a ticket. Nonstop. She pauses, and I detect a shuddering gasp. And Danielle, thank you.

I don’t recall ever hearing my mom say those words to Danielle before. Fuck you, damn you, screw you—yes. Thank you wasn’t a part of her vocabulary when Danielle lived with us, when she was my Other Mother. They are not messing around.

Mom has never known how to handle a crisis. She’s doing what makes sense to her. She’s sending me away.

When she reenters the room, I try to protest, but I’m mute. Besides, what would I say if I had a voice? How would I explain that it wasn’t an accident? That the pills and the cough syrup were the only way for me to regain control of my life?

She could never comprehend what happened to me at school and how a dark hand reached up and grabbed me, dragged me into a realm of despair. In a matter of minutes, my goals disintegrated and my future spun out of my reach.

So now I am broken, and she has no idea how to fix me. Half a world away, she can forget that I exist, and that’s fine with me. Half a world away, I can rise to her expectations and disappear. I’ll become invisible, and she’ll never have to think about me again.

Chapter 4

I’m propped up in my own bed, mindlessly playing Trivia Junkie. It’s been three weeks since I tried to die. I’ve been in limbo ever since, doing what I’m told, whatever it takes to be left alone. The hospital kept me under observation for forty-eight hours and subjected me to countless questions in an attempt to ascertain that I wouldn’t turn around and try again. It wasn’t difficult to figure out what they wanted me to say, to get them out of my hair.

I spent another week in the psych ward as promised. It wasn’t the scene of Gothic horror I expected: emaciated, naked lunatics chasing after each other and wielding homemade weapons. Instead, it was a quiet, pale place where I spent my days staring out a window at the distant Flatirons or in therapy sessions to try and come to terms with what I’d done.

They released me once I agreed with all my therapist’s recommendations, but I will be subjected to the intervention of strangers on a regular basis for the foreseeable future. I’ve mastered the art of nodding my head and shrugging.

My shrink, Dr. Pence, wants me to keep a journal of my feelings while I’m away—a complete waste of time. I won’t be going to Brown, now, or law school. I won’t escape Mom’s shitty house and her parade of miscellaneous lovers. No journal will give me back my future. Apparently, Dr. Pence thinks this process will cleanse my tortured soul. She’s a friend of my mom’s though, and predictably, she thinks I can visualize and meditate my way out of the darkness.

My darkness is so much bigger than her new-age mantras. She has no idea how far I’ve fallen.

She also gave me an assignment designed for a kindergartner. Every day, I am expected to measure my suicidal tendencies with a highly scientific device she calls a mort-o-meter. Dr. Pence acts as though this is a revolutionary idea when it’s actually just a piece of paper photocopied fifteen times and placed in a cheap pocket folder. Every morning, I’m expected to highlight the black-and-white thermometer to gauge my level of suicidal contemplation for the day from 0 to 100 percent. A responsible adult (does she really mean my mother?) is supposed to check Mort every morning and decide whether or not to have me committed for the rest of my life.

Twenty-first century technology, first-world problem, timeless irony.

I don’t want to play along. My goal is to drop below the radar, just like before, to move through life unnoticed until I’ve left this world behind.

In keeping with my obsession with quashing the element of surprise, I decide to research my destination. Danielle, her partner, and my almost-half-sister live thousands of miles away in a remote part of England. I will be sequestered there for two weeks, cut off from technology and everyone I know, to give me time and space to heal. At least that’s my mother’s plan on a superficial level. The truth is she wants me gone. She doesn’t know what to do with me, her biggest mistake, the one who has always been quietly self-sufficient, industrious, and driven, who now requires constant care and supervision.

She doesn’t know me at all.

I cannot reclaim what I’ve lost. I can’t erase the image that defines me now. It’s too late to reinvent myself, so I’ll self-destruct instead. If I do it quietly, maybe everyone will just leave me alone.

Google image #1: The landscape of Cornwall is craggy and windswept, but covered with flowers. Ochre, vermillion, and indigo—colors from a Crayola box.

Google image #2: Farmland. Fields full of serenely grazing cows and sheep sectioned off by rough stone walls.

Google image #3: A golden beach with buff young guys surfing on aquamarine waves.

My search results look like a collection of postcards on a wire rack in a cheap souvenir shop—idyllic and artificial. Cornwall looks like somewhere in the Mediterranean or Hawaii, not drizzly, gray England. The image of the ocean pulls me in like a siren, and I’ve never even seen it before.

One of my favorite adventures with Nanny used to be a trip to the aquarium. We would weave elaborate stories about mermaids and sea monsters. The ocean was our secret fantasy. We never managed to get there together. It’s too late for so many things now.

I could talk to her, explain everything that’s gone wrong, but her brain is too corroded to process my words. The old Nanny would know what I should do. She would blame Mom for what’s happened, run her fingers through my hair, console me. She would help me figure out how to survive what’s happened and move on.

Closing my eyes, I can almost feel a warm breeze tickling my face and wet sand pushing between my toes. Gentle waves break and flow, eddying around my ankles like whispered secrets.

But I don’t deserve beauty and tranquility, so I open my eyes.

Just then, Mom walks into my room. She never knocks, but since the incident it’s like I’m under constant surveillance. She plops down on the bed beside me and scans the screen of my laptop. Where is this?

Why are you here? I don’t look up from the screen.

Because I’m worried about you, Zoe, she lies.

She’s worried about herself, her reputation, the way I’ve disrupted the mellow ebb and flow of her uncomplicated life.

It’s where Danielle lives. Where you’re sending me. There’s an accusation in my voice. I can’t help it.

So I’m sending you to paradise. How lovely for you. She sounds pissed.

It was your decision.

This isn’t supposed to be a vacation.

Feel free to take my place. Hot tears start to roll down my cheeks. It could be worse. At least I didn’t get knocked up, like you.

She shoots me a sharp, warning glance. Watch your mouth. I was older. And there was no Internet.

That’s not my fault. Just once, maybe she could hear me, make an effort to understand who I am. Somehow, this is turning into the story of her life, not mine. I had no idea he would do something like this. I pause and take a deep breath. Are you ashamed of me?

She looks startled, but she doesn’t answer.

Then maybe I won’t come back. I’m a kite caught in the branches of a tree, and it’s not worth it for Mom to climb up and untangle me. It’s so much easier just to cut the string.

I’m not ashamed. I’m disappointed. And I’m pissed as hell at that bastard. Reflexively, she starts to clench her fists. You need to tell me who he is.

I’d prefer that you didn’t go to jail for life. There’s no telling what Mom would do to Scott if I revealed his identity to her. The less she knows, the sooner it’s over. Scott is already part of my past, he just left behind a piece of evidence that I cannot erase.

Mom scoots behind me on my immaculately made bed and absentmindedly begins to braid my hair. At first, the muscles in my back tense, but then I’m transported back to childhood, before Danielle left, before I disappeared inside myself. As she tugs and rakes with her strong fingers, I start to relax for the first time in days. She is a sculptor, an art professor only to pay the bills. I’ve always relished her touch, but today it’s more important than ever.

You’re not yourself, she says. The sweats, the messy hair.

I’m more comfortable like this. Besides. Who will see me apart from you? It’s a fair point. My clothes are always neatly pressed and hung. There’s never so much as a sock on my floor. I hate clutter and waste. My room is an oasis of order in the chaos of her filthy house. I used to spend an hour every morning making sure my makeup was perfect, my hair brushed one hundred times, all for the sake of appearances. Now I can’t convince myself to change out of the sweats I sleep in, and I can’t be bothered to bathe unless Mom comes in and tells me I smell. Even then it’s a toss-up.

Why didn’t you tell me?

Tell you what? I’m glad I can’t see her. This is the first time we’ve really talked about what happened, the first time she’s dared to ask.

"That you were dating. That you were sleeping with