The Words We Keep

After Alice turns out the light that night, I lie in the dark for an hour, gathering my courage.

I try to decipher her breathing. Is she awake? Do I dare violate the Treaty of Bedroom Silence? Maybe Micah’s right—she’s still in there, somewhere.

“Alice.” I whisper so quietly that there’s no way she can hear me.

I take a deep breath and try again, for real this time.

“Alice.”

“Sleep. Now,” she mutters.

“I just—I just wanted to talk to you about something. You know your medicines?”

Alice sits up, her eyes accusing me in the darkness. “You’re snooping around in my medication?”

“It’s right there in the bathroom.”

“And you just happened to read it?”

Off to a bad start.

“Look, that’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

“Well, what if—I mean—I was just wondering how you think they’re working. Like, do you feel better?”

She falls back onto her bed and stares up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling that she put up during a short-lived space-themed room redecoration.

“Why are you asking about this?”

“It’s just. Well, you seem—”

“What? What do I seem, Lily? Please, tell me, with all your expert medical knowledge, how I seem.”

“Actually.” I clear my throat. “I’ve been doing some research on bipolar—”

“Oh, here we go.” She sits up in her bed again, and I can feel her staring at me through the dark. “Look. I don’t want to talk about my medicine. Or Fairview. Or have some sisterly heart-to-heart about this. So can you please just drop it?”

A long, heavy silence presses down on me. Can’t she see that I want to help her? That I’d do anything—everything—to bring her back? Beneath the sheets, I pick off a scab. I make one final attempt.

“It’s just, maybe I could help you. Maybe we could fix—”

Alice groans. “I don’t need your help,” she says, rolling away from me to face the wall. “And you can’t fix this, because this is me.”

Alice pulls the cover over her head so I can’t even hear her breathing.

You blew it.

Again.

Silence fills the room except for my heartbeat, whooshing in my ears, and the lingering echo of Alice’s words. I tuck my own words somewhere deep inside my chest and retreat to the bathroom. Sitting on the lip of the tub, I stare at the tinge of blood that stains the grout. Maybe she’s right: I’m trying to fix the unfixable.

Poking around in old wounds can’t do anything but hurt.

Friday, 11:30 pm

LogoLily: Well, that went over like a fart in an elevator.

100-acre-wood: Umm…you really need to work on your sexting skills.

LogoLily: I’m serious! I tried to talk to Alice.

LogoLily: Total crash and burn.

100-acre-wood: Sorry.

100-acre-wood: I have something that may cheer you up.

LogoLily: Alice’s medical records?

100-acre-wood: No. Better. Meet me Monday in the art room after school?

LogoLily: Aye, aye, sir!

100-acre-wood: Also, in re: the sexting earlier. I’m totally not into that.

100-acre-wood: I mean like TOTALLY not.

100-acre-wood: probably wouldn’t even respond

LogoLily: Good night, Micah.

100-acre-wood: G’night, Lily. Sleep well.

Not a chance.

—

Margot tiptoes in after midnight, Harry Potter clutched tight to her chest. She wants to know why we were fighting.

“Honestly, Margot, I have no idea.” I’m staring at my empty notebook by the light of my cell phone so I don’t wake Alice, trying to see if Micah’s muse rediscovery program is working, even a little bit. Spoiler: it’s not. “But I do know it is way past your bedtime.”

“I’ll be soooo quiet,” she pleads. I’m no match for her puppy-dog eyes.

“Fine, but I have a ton of work, so No. Talking.” I wag my finger at her. “Deal?”

She hops into my bed, snuggles up next to me, and positions her book into the light from my phone. She turns the pages of Mom’s book slowly. It’s the one Mom was reading to us while she was pregnant. Before Margot was born, Mom was working her way through the whole collection, reading them to us in bed every night. We’d huddle up, all three of us and sometimes Dad, in one little bed. I don’t have a lot of clear memories of her, but I can remember the smell of her lavender lotion as I snuggled in, the sound of her laugh filling all my empty places, her words keeping me safe and warm in the dark.

When Margot came home from the hospital and Mom didn’t, I never picked up the books again.

Margot sits up suddenly, pointing to a passage.

“I think I may have found something,” she whispers. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about Alice’s brain. You know, how it’s not working like it used to? And I think it’s like Dementors, these super-scary demon things. Basically, they kiss you and suck out your soul. Well, not your soul exactly, but they take away all your happiness and mess up your brain so you just keep replaying all your saddest and scariest moments over and over again. Maybe that’s what Alice has.”

Her eyes are wide, animated, like middle-grade fiction has just cracked the code to mental health.

“Margot. That’s a story.”

“Well, yeah, I don’t mean actual Dementors, but maybe it’s like that. I’m gonna do some more research.” She pats the book. “I haven’t gotten to the part yet where they actually fight the Dementors, but the good guys always win.”

“Margot, I really don’t think Harry Potter is going to have the answers to—”

“But it might. We can’t just do nothing. All for one, right?” she says, using the slogan Dad used to say after Mom died, when he’d call us the Four Musketeers.

“Right.” I want to point out how delusional she’s being, but it’s not like I’ve got a better plan.

Margot sticks her icy toes beneath my legs. Pretty soon, she’s snoring, her mouth gaped open, one hand flung across my chest, the other cradling her book, confident she’ll find the magic we need to turn back time.

If only we could all live in her fantasy world.

From across the room, Alice tells me to turn off the light so she can sleep. This from the girl who keeps me up most nights, waiting for her to sneak back in from wherever she goes.

Ping!

Sam: the she-witch is at it again

She sends me a link to Kali’s latest post, a close-up black-and-white photograph of herself with the caption: PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST—my partner and I are KILLING this project. Be ready to be blown away!

“Seriously, Lily!” Alice says without even turning around. “Sleep. Now.”

I turn off my phone and the light and sit in the dark thinking about Margot’s magic plan and my own dead ends to bring Alice back or shut off the monsters in my head. At least I still have a shot at winning this poetry contest.

Which is why, whatever Micah has planned on Monday, it has to work.

Because this room is running out of oxygen.

And I’m running out of time.

2:45 a.m.

You shouldn’t be messing around with Micah.

3:07 a.m.

You need to be shaving off 1.7 seconds

or sleeping (ha!) or writing a poem (double ha!)

or helping get Alice back.

Why can’t you write it?

Why can’t you sleep?

You must be doing something wrong.

Maybe you’re doing everything wrong.

4:00 a.m.

You’re bleeding again.

Seriously

what’s wrong with you?