“Kansas,” he whispers, suddenly frightened.
I grasp the blanket firmly.
“What about Chester? Why were you in contact with him?” he asks, softer now.
My hands are shaking as I type:He sent me a video message that somehow self-deleted. I haven’t written to him at all. He does this a lot, sending me messages like that.
“Okay.” River nods several times, as if reassuring himself of the truth in my words. He steps toward me and stretches out his hand. “Don’t be afraid of me. Never in front of me,” he saysharshly. “Chester told the truth. I was in a clinic for a long time. My friends must have told him that because he couldn’t know that on his own. It was a while after June’s death. I was nineteen. In the psychiatric ward, they pumped me full of medication and said I was depressed. In general, not just in response to the June thing...”
“De-depressed...” I whisper in dismay. My dad was, too, after Mom left him. I think he still is.
“With depression comes a gloomy mood and a lack of drive.” River looks at me. “You feel empty. Everything is pointless.”
And is that true? Do you suffer from it?I feel terrible as I hold the words out to him.
“No!”
But you slept for so long and then not at all. Isn’t this a lack of drive?
“Depression has different levels of severity, Kansas. Maybe I had mild form, maybe not. All I know is that I don’t want to take the medication anymore. Never again.”
Medication?I think about the pills on the sink.
“Lithium and such. I hate it. I can’t think when I take that stuff.”
They’re making a zombie out of me, I recall his words.
“They cloud your mind and close everything down. I feel like all my emotions are buried under tons of soil. And I have to feel, you know? I’m a musician; that’s all I am. I. Must. Feel. Something. Kurt Cobain said, ‘Thank you for the tragedy. I need it for my art.’ You’ve heard of it?”
No. Maybe River felt like I felt the last few days at Kensington. As if everything was infinitely far away and yet so cruel.
For a moment, I think of Mrs. Elliott and her aphorisms about the meaning of life. There was also a quote by Kurt Cobain—something about punk rock. I type something and hold it out to him.
“What is the meaning of life?” River laughs as he reads the question aloud. “I have no idea.” He lights a cigarette and inhales the smoke so deeply, it seems to disappear into him. As he speaks, he breathes it out again. “Maybe it doesn’t exist, and maybe God is merely a rapping madman who sings the wrong song.”
Seriously?
“I loved someone and lost someone. What do you think the meaning of life is?”
Until I met you, my meaning was to avoid pain.
He gently touches my cheek with his fingertips. “I’m sorry, baby.”
For a moment, I enjoy the shiver that comes over my skin with the word baby and his fingers.
He lets go of me. “What is it now?”
I don’t know. You and kissing, maybe?
“Me and kissing. Well, well.” He smiles, which makes his eyes sparkle. “A lot of people believe that the meaning of life is love. But let me tell you something. Life is like people. It hates you, it betrays you, it fucks you, and then it loves you again. Maybe life is a party that you end up at by chance. One goes earlier, another later, one drinks and the other is completely sober. In the end, it might just come down to who had the most fun!”
Now I have to smile even though his words make me think. A party—that’s so like him.
”Tucks, life and its meaning are as difficult to understand as psychopaths... Me and kissing, huh?”
Are you depressed now or not?
“Me and kissing?”
