Backlash

Elmo is telling kids about how great it is to share. Oh, Elmo, you poor, deluded little red fur ball. You don’t have a clue, do ya, li’l buddy? Kids are way meaner than Muppets.

“Can you turn down the TV a little?” Mom asks.

I push Mute. Elmo’s relentless optimism is starting to grate on my nerves anyway. He doesn’t get it. Wait till you hit puberty, Elmo. Just you wait.

“The police called,” Mom says. “They’re coming over in half an hour to talk to us — well, specifically to talk to you. I thought you might want to take a shower and get dressed.”

Not particularly. I’m happy to stay in my pj’s, with unwashed hair and no makeup and unbrushed teeth. Because I really don’t care. I know I’m supposed to, but I don’t. But here’s the thing with Mom: When she says, “I thought you might want to …,” what she really means is I want you to … If I say what I really feel, namely that I want to remain slobby and unwashed, she’ll ask me twenty questions about why (answer: because I don’t care about how I look) and don’t I worry about the impression I’m giving the world (answer: no) and doesn’t it make me feel better to be clean (answer: nothing makes me feel better).

I wish she would come straight out and say, Go take a shower and get dressed, instead of pretending I have any say in the matter.

“What do they want to talk about?” I ask, instead of telling her that.

“They want to ask you some questions about Facebook.”

Ugh. Just what I’m trying to forget about. Just what I’d rather not think about ever again.

My father is obsessed with the subject. The other night he printed out his stupid spreadsheet for what feels like the millionth time and wanted me to look at it so I could tell him something about every single person on the list. I tore it up again without even glancing at it. He yelled at me, saying that I owed him my cooperation “after everything you’ve put this family through.” Then Mom yelled at him for yelling at me when I’m “still so fragile and unstable.” Syd yelled at both of them because she’s “sick of living in such a messed-up family where everyone yells at each other all the time while I’m trying to do my freaking homework.”

I curled up, wishing that I were a turtle with a hard shell that I could retreat into and hide when things got difficult or scary. And I stuck my fingers in my ears, asking myself again why I had to be such a failure, why I couldn’t even get a simple thing like taking too many pills right.

What Dad doesn’t understand is that I just want to forget. Every time he tries to ask me questions, I pretend to have a relapse, except the reality is I’m half pretending. My parents think that trying to commit suicide was the hardest part. They still don’t get that failing is what’s hard. How from the moment my brain starts to work again in the morning, I have to start trying to make sense of why I’m still here and to figure out how to survive another day.

Mom is alert, as always, trying to read every tiny change of expression on my face.

“Are you up for this? I spoke to Linda and she said she thought it would be okay. You have an appointment with her this afternoon anyway to process whatever might come up.”

Process. Murray Monster, can we ixnay the word process for the rest of my life? There are word processors and food processors and processed meat, but apparently all my thoughts and feelings also have to be processed, like spray cheese or SPAM.

“Whatever. I’ll go take a shower.”

I might have to keep the door cracked, but at least Mom won’t follow me in there.

In the shower, I twist the hot tap up until the water turns my skin pink. If only hot water could sterilize me; if only it could boil the thoughts out of my brain. At least it fills the bathroom with swirling mists of condensation. I close my eyes and try to visualize my brain as the fog: grayish white, fluffy, with no form, no thoughts, no pain.

It works for about four seconds before Christian’s face emerges from the mist. The world would be a better place without you in it.

I might as well do what Mom says and wash my hair, since I’m an epic failure at my own life.

“You look refreshed, dear,” Mom says when I walk into the kitchen.

Refreshed. Rebooted. Reprogrammed. Reprocessed.

Ignoring her, I open the fridge and scan the contents for something that might make the Gratitude List. But there’s no cookie dough, no gooey chocolate cake, no unhealthy snacks. Mom thinks I still care about not being Lardo, that I still think all those trips to the nutritionist and all that extra exercise and the weighing food and mindful eating and stuff were worth it. Nope. If there were a big chocolate cake in the fridge, I would eat the whole thing and wash it down with a quart of milk. Because what does it matter? What does anything matter when the world would be a better place without me in it?

“Don’t leave the fridge door open. Can I make you something?”

If she could make me understand about Christian, that would be something useful. But she can’t. I mumble, “No thanks,” and grab a yogurt that I don’t really want, just to stop her from nagging me.

“They should be here in a few minutes,” Mom says. She’s watching my every movement, even as I go to get a spoon for the yogurt, hypersensitive to the weapons for self-harm lurking all around me. Kitchen knives. Matches. Glass. You name it. It’s all here in our kitchen.

I don’t respond. I just sit and eat the stupid yogurt. It’s banana, which makes it even less appealing. This is definitely not going to be one for the Gratitude List, unless I can write that I’m glad that eating it is over. Luckily for me, the doorbell rings.

Mom looks from me to the direction of the front door, her brow furrowed. She’s obviously worried about leaving me alone in the presence of So. Much. Danger.

“I’ll just get the door,” she says. “Back in a sec.”

As soon as she leaves the room, I ditch the rest of the yogurt in the garbage can, making sure to hide it under something so Mom doesn’t see. If there’s one thing being in the Shrink Hospital of Horrors taught me, it’s that I have to play the game.

When Mom comes back, she’s followed by a police lady and a guy wearing a worn jacket and khakis instead of a police uniform, but you can still see the gun holstered under his arm and the badge at his waist.

“Lara, honey, this is Detective Souther and Officer Hall. Officer Hall was here the night you were … taken to the hospital. Officer, Detective, can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

“No thanks,” Detective Souther says. “Are you most comfortable chatting here, Lara?”

I’d be most comfortable not chatting at all, but nobody is giving me that option.

I shrug. “Whatever.”

We all sit down at the kitchen table. Detective Souther takes out a little black notebook. Something tells me he doesn’t have to make useless Gratitude Lists in it.

“We’ve been looking into the activity on your Facebook profile the night of your …” He hesitates for the briefest second. “Hospitalization. We’re here to ask you about a young man named Christian DeWitt.”

If there is one thing in the world I don’t want to talk about to the police, especially in front of my mom, it’s a young man named Christian DeWitt.

Math equation: Christian + talking = pain.

But if I show that I’m freaked out by the idea, Mom will get even more freaked out, creating a vicious vortex of freaked-outness.

“Oh? Like what?” I ask with pretend nonchalance.

“How long have you been friends with Mr. DeWitt?” Detective Souther asks.

Before he turned on me? Two months, four days, eleven hours …