Toward the barrier.
Toward the edge of the bridge.
And the river far below.
My mother screamed as the car careened into the other lane, nearly clipping a BMW. There was a horrid screeching in surround sound and the smel of burning tires and my mother’s screaming and the screaming I was doing in my own head. With every bit of strength I could concentrate on, I pushed hard and felt a pop inside my chest and suddenly all feeling rushed back to me like I was being brushed with pins and needles.
I let go of the wheel and braced myself on the dashboard and my mother got the car under control seconds before we slammed against the barrier. If we had hit, we would have flipped and gone over.
Other cars sped past us, honking, waving their fingers, mouthing swear words, while mom slowly, gingerly applied the gas. She was shaking and her Kung-Fu grip on the wheel was the only thing keeping her from bouncing out of her seat. We crawled down the bridge and at the first opportunity to pul over, she did.
Acting like she was in a dream-like state, she flipped the car into park, turned off the engine and turned in her seat to face me. She lifted up her sunglasses to reveal smudged mascara and blue eyes magnified by tears. Her expression matched that unforgettable look I saw in my father’s face as he hauled me up from the roof. But there was something else. Almost an understanding, like she was recognizing me for the first time and seeing the monster I real y was.
“Perry,” she breathed.
“I said I didn’t feel well ,” I told her glibly.
Then I pitched myself into uncontrol able laughter that lasted most of the car ride back home.
The minute I burst through the front door, I rushed to the downstairs bathroom to puke. I keeled over the toilet and brought up everything until my throat burned raw. It turns out I had salad for lunch. That explained the salad dressing smel earlier.
When I was empty and exhausted I looked at myself in the mirror. My heart dropped in my ribs.
I looked like a different person. No, not different. I looked like I was barely even alive. My cheekbones jutted out of my face, the circles under my eyes had spread. My lips were dry, cracked and bleeding. My eyes themselves were ful y dilated into black holes. My neck was red and teased with scratches that I knew led down into my chest. I wondered how Doctor Freedman could chalk up any of this to a measly broken heart. I looked like I should be locked up and put away, like the asylum ghosts at Riverside Institute.
I couldn’t look at myself anymore; it was making me sick again and I didn’t have any food left to throw up. A piercing pain jabbed at my temples instead. I turned off the light in the bathroom and stepped out into the hal way.
My mom and dad were in the kitchen talking to each other in hushed, frantic voices. Three guesses as to who they were talking about.
I stood in the doorway and they shut up with nary a guilty look on their faces.
My mom waved me in.
“Come sit down, pumpkin,” she said, and poured a glass of water for me. I wondered how she could stil cal me such an endearing term after I tried to kil her.
The tea kettle on the stove boiled over and the piercing whistle made me wince in pain, exaggerating the pain in my head.
“Sorry,” she said, and quickly took it off the burner.
“Perry, I heard what happened,” my father said. He looked down at the cuffs on his red and white striped shirt and started smoothing them out. “I can’t stress the importance of these pil s that the doctor gave you.”
My mother smiled forceful y and plunked a pair of yel ow and pink pil s beside the glass of water. I eyed them wryly.
“I’m not taking these,” I said. Before anyone could protest, I rushed on, “Doctor Freedman said I could make my own choices. I’m twenty-three. You can’t force me to be medicated.”
“Not yet,” my father said.
I raised my head sharply at that.
“That’s OK, Perry,” my mother cut in. “You’re right. You don’t have to take them. It’s just...you need them. You’re not well . The doctor said so himself, and I think you know it yourself. In the car…I…”
Feeling a bout of shame, I looked down at my hands.
The scratches seeped clear fluid. It didn’t even faze me anymore. I was becoming someone else and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The pil s would be futile except make it easier to give up. If I wanted to go, I wanted to go in my right mind with every fighting ounce I had left.
“If you don’t care about us enough to take them, think about your sister. Or think about yourself. Your self-hate can’t run that deep.”
My chin jutted out defiantly and I met her eyes. “I don’t hate myself. I hate what I’ve become.”
“Become?” my mother said with a hint of irony in her voice. “Pumpkin, you’ve always been like this.”
Then she shrugged with false carelessness and gave me a cup of rooibos tea.
“Anyway, your choice. Here, have some tea. I put extra honey in it. You look like you could use something sweet.”
My throat did burn after the vomiting and I was feeling a bit on the dizzy side. I took the hot cup in my hands and slowly sipped it. It tasted surprisingly sweet – she went overboard with the honey.
My dad sat down on the bar stool beside me and placed his hairy hand on my arm.
“You’re not alone in this, OK, sweetie?” he said. The tenderness in his voice, so rarely heard, made me want to cry. But I nodded and swal owed hot gulps of red tea to keep the emotions away. I was tired of losing it and afraid to let go.