“Urrrgh.” I shut my eyes. “They’re going to freak out.”
“They’re supposed to freak out,” she says, twisting side to side to stretch out her back. “They love you. And they don’t want you to...”
“I don’t want to either.”
“I’ll help you,” Anna says. “I brought my homework. We can study until they get home and tell them together.”
I press my face to my knees, squishing my glasses against the bridge of my nose. “I’m so behind on the essay. I’m going to fail Lundahl’s class for sure.”
“Maybe.” Anna shrugs. “Maybe not.”
“How are you so chill?”
“I mean, I’m not, at all. But also, therapy and medication.” She bends her wrist gayly, wiggling her fingers at me. “MaybeIneed therapy and medication,” I mutter.
She snorts. “Maybe you do.”
As usual, Shar gets home first. Her truck pulls up, and the cats scatter, dashing to greet her. Our walls are thin, and I can hear everything: the passenger door slamming shut, her key turning in the lock, her work boots on the floor as she headsto the kitchen. She sets something down on the counter, probably her backpack with her lunch and water bottle and whatever else a carpenter needs to bring to work.
“It’s gonna be OK,” Anna says, her quiet voice bringing me back to my room. I was so focused on listening to Shar’s arrival that it almost swallowed me up. Anna touches my knee from where she’s sprawled out beside me, doing a reading for history class.
“Sid?” Shar calls from the kitchen, and a moment later she’s tromping toward my door. A knock sounds.
“Hey,” I call back. “Anna’s here studying with me.”
“Oh, great!” She peeks her head in, smiling at both of us. “I’m gonna take a nap, then probably get started on dinner once your mom gets home. Anna, you’re welcome to stay.”
Anna glances at me, then grins at Shar. “Thanks!”
Shar withdraws, and I look down at Anna. “Please stay.”
“Shar’s cooking. Of course I’m staying,” she says. “When do you want to tell them?”
“Before dinner,” I say. “I just want to get it over with.”
She nods, and turns her eyes back to her laptop. I watch her for a while, then zone out, staring out the window. Images play in that weird liminal space behind my eyeballs, and my room fades out until I’m alone in the dark theater of my brain, watching the past few days over and over and over. Forrest probably hates me now. Who could like someone who literally walks away while you’re telling them you want to date them?
A little while later, the sound of the front door opening jerks me back to reality again. I look at Anna, and she givesme the thumbs-up. I take a deep breath, and slide off the bed. Here we go.
We nearly run into Mom as we step out of my door.
“Hi sweetie,” she says, and catches sight of Anna behind me. “You two hanging out?”
“Yes. Um. Actually. Anna came over to help me with something. Can I talk to you and Shar?” I shove my hands into my pockets, gripping the fabric at the bottom.
She frowns slightly. “Of course.”
We follow her down the hall and into the room she shares with Shar. Its walls are painted an eggshell white, like the living room and kitchen, with gauzy curtains and framed photos of our family above the bed, a queen-size that takes up half the room. A small brown leather armchair sits in the corner opposite the door, Earl Grey asleep on top of the fleece blanket piled on its seat.
Shar is lying down on her side of the bed and cracks an eye when we come in. “What’s up?”
“Sid and Anna want to talk to us about something,” Mom says, closing the door. She crosses to the chair and slides Earl Grey to one side so she can sit; the cat lets out a croaky meow of protest, then resettles in her new spot. Shar straightens up, yawning, and motions us to the bed.
I perch on its other side, Anna standing next to me.
“What’s going on?” Mom asks. I can already tell she’s worried, and I hate that I’m about to make that even worse.
“I’m, um.” I clasp my hands together, rubbing one thumb over the other. I didn’t think about how to say this, but it’s too late now. “I’ve been having these ...thoughts. For a longtime, actually. But they started getting worse last year. And this year. I thought it was anxiety, but ...it’s something else. I get these, like...” I spread my hands out, as if I can show Mom and Shar in the shape of the air between my fingers. “Visions. I don’t know. They feel so real. Of you guys getting hurt, or Dad, or ...people turning on me. And I hear these voices all the time. Telling me to do stuff. Like run away, or that my friends hate me, or...” I swallow. Tears sting my eyes, and I take off my glasses, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyeballs. Anna grips my shoulder. “Today they’ve been telling me to kill myself.”
