ONE
You wake up on a moving bus somewhere in northern Minnesota, and for a few seconds you think he’s still alive. This happens almost every day when you’re awake, but you haven’t yet opened your eyes. That’s when you see him. Slouching in a doorway. Eating olives from a jar. Sitting next to you on your bed in the heat of summer, reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You can see it all so clearly. His lanky body sprawled on the bed. His eyes searching the page as he tries to make it through the last chapter without meeting a bad end. But before he does, and before you can ask him if he’s real, your eyes flash open to a pink sunrise blurring past your window, and immediately, you remember where you are.
You are on a school bus you boarded this morning in the parking lot of your old junior high. And judging by the road noise, this bus has seen better days. The constant drone puts your thoughts in a blender, and it takes you a second to get your bearings. You are not in your old room. You are not with your brother. You’re in a seat by yourself, fists clenched in your lap, and your cheek numb against the cold glass of the window. Outside, a line of jagged pines cuts through the rising sun. Inside, it’s hard to see much of anything, even your fellow passengers.
They must have been there this morning, but it was pitchblack outside, and you were distracted by your dad, who was there to make sure you actually got on the bus. It was so dark he almost did a face-plant as he helped you with your new sleeping bag and survival gear. He isn’t the world’s most coordinated guy even in broad daylight, and he couldn’t even hug you without accidentally stepping on your foot. You were okay with the hug, though, which broke a quiet tension that had haunted you on the drive over.
You were less happy when your dad decided to speak.
Because what he said was:
“Just try. Okay, Case?”
This was not the right thing to say for two reasons.
One, it implied that you haven’t been trying to feel better since the funeral. And two, it suggested that you don’t usually try at things. Both of which aren’t true. You want more than anything to feel better. And you try way too hard at most things. You once heard anxiety described like a duck moving across the water; on the surface everything looks smooth, but beneath, it’s all frantic motion. This sounds about right to you, so maybe all your dad has been seeing is the surface and not your little duck legs, paddling for their very lives.
You managed to swallow your anger, though, and moments later you were sad as you watched him shuffle back to his dented Prius with the bumper sticker that readsFOLLOW ME TO THE WAFFLE HOUSE!He gave you a half wave before getting inside, and he seemed hesitant to leave, which was odd since this whole thing was his idea. Your mom had to work early at the hospital today, but she made your favorite dinner last night and refolded the clothes in your bag. Just thinking about all your shirts in there, sitting in perfect squares, is enough to make your throat catch.
Sometimes when you’re up late, your mind doing its usual laps, you think if you don’t start to feel better soon, you’ll have to live with your parents for the rest of your life. This is comforting at first. Then you remember the way they scream at each other over the deafening drone of the coffee grinder in the morning, and how your dad still walks around in his briefs, which have a number of see-through patches in the back, and you feel like you would probably slowly turn into a very different person if this was your fate.
The bus goes around a bend in the road and a blinding ray of sun cuts through the windshield, setting the air aglow. But, still, it’s hard to make out your fellow travelers behind the row of tall seats. The only thing you know about them is that, like you, they are in high school, and like you, they are willing to go out in the middle of nowhere for weeks with total strangers to confront their overwhelming anxiety and try to find a reserve of strength to overcome it.
Adventure Therapy.
That’s what it’s called.
The phrase made you laugh out loud the first time you read it on the website. You imagined yourself whining about your life as you rappelled out of a military helicopter and hacked through a dense jungle with a machete. The specifics of what you’re actually going to do have been kept secret, but there are pictures of canoes and overgrown hiking trails on the FAQ page, so you know it’s going to be something outdoorsy, and something that counts as an “adventure.”
But that could be anything, really.
Using a public bathroom can be an adventure with your condition.
“Excuse me.”
A disembodied voice sends your thoughts dissolving like thinning mist, and it takes a second to realize that the words are being directed at you.
“Do you have a Klonopin?”
“What?” you say.
The face that greets you is fuzzy in the half light, but the voice sounds like a guy’s. And, sure enough, the longer you stare, the more the rounded silhouette of a short afro comes into focus. Then a pair of retro, brow-line glasses.
“Klonopin. It’s a central-nervous-system depressant. Do you have one I could borrow?”
His voice is soft with a slight quaver, and you can’t tell if he’s being condescending or just as clear as possible about what he needs.
“I know what it is,” you say. “Just…”
“Just what?” says the voice.
“Did you really come on an anxiety trip and forget your meds?”
A frustrated sigh.
“No, I’ve got, like, half a Walgreens with me, but it’s in my duffel under the bus. I usually keep a lucky one in my pocket, but today I forgot. Go figure. Anyway, I…”
“I’m a Xanax person,” you say.
