There Will Come a Time

W
hen Chris speaks, his hands flop around like dying fish on the deck of a ship. I try not to stare, but it's impossible. They're pale, scaly things, too small for his wrists, more like the hands of a kid than a man. He's going on and on about how much progress he thinks we've made, about how I'm on my way toward health. I notice that he doesn't say I'm healed. Everyone is always in recovery. No one is ever whole. I didn't need six therapy sessions to tell me that I'll never be whole again.

“Mark, so what do you think?”

Hearing my name, I lift my gaze and meet his eyes. “What?”

“How have these sessions been for you?”

I'm unsure how to respond. If I say they've been helpful, then
it's as if I'm admitting that he's been right—that everyone's been right—and I've needed counseling. If I say they haven't, he'll write something like,
Needs more time,
and then I'll have to waste additional hours of my life with this guy and his stupid fish hands.

I take a different approach. “It's always good to talk things out.” Not that I've done any talking. I've basically repeated Chris's phrases back to him, telling him what I think he wants to hear. It's easy, especially with adults who think listening means nodding and taking notes and making assumptions. Assumptions like Chris made when we met. He took one look at me—male, Filipino, teen, beanie, white plugs, red T-shirt, jeans—and said, “What's up?” as if he was excited to practice his teen vernacular. I held out my hand and said, “Pleased to meet you.” I didn't want to be there, but I'd been raised to respect authority. My formality must have thrown him, because he gave a thin smile after shaking my hand and motioned for me to sit in the black leather chair facing his desk.

Chris's brown eyes perk up at my response. I've probably made his day.

“Yes, yes, it is, Mark. I'm glad you can see that.” He folds his tiny hands on the desk in front of him. “I hope you'll take the tools you've learned here and apply them with your family, your friends. Know that you're not alone. I am always here if you need to talk.”

I nod. Sure, at 110 bucks an hour.

“Great.” Chris gets up, signaling that our session is done. “Can you send your father in on your way out?”

In the waiting room, Dad stands in front of a painting of an ocean.

“Um, Chris wants you,” I say.

Dad glances at my eyes, then looks at the floor as he says, “Okay.” He pats my shoulder twice as he walks by, and closes the door to Chris's office behind him.

I stand in his place across from the picture. The sea is dark blue and streams of sunlight break through a patch in the clouds, illuminating the water, making it sparkle. A couple of birds fly across the horizon. A lighthouse sits atop a cliff directing a beam of light at a small sailboat in the corner of the canvas. The caption underneath reads:
AFTER THE STORM
.

They say grief is an ocean measured in waves and currents, rocking and tossing you about like a boat stranded in the middle of the deep. But this is not true. Grief is a dull blade against the skin of your soul. It takes its time doing its work. Grief will slowly drive you crazy, until you try to sever yourself like some kind of wounded animal caught in a trap. You'd rather maim yourself and be free.

But you'll never be free because you'll always remember. I remember. I remember my twin sister, Grace. So I press up against the blade even harder.

E
veryone is going to die.

You could wake up, get out of bed, trip over a pair of sneakers on the way to the bathroom, fall down the stairs, and break your neck. You could get some crazy disease. You could cross the street and get hit by a car. You could have a brain aneurysm, or maybe choke on a piece of hot dog like Jimmy Trevino did during lunch freshman year. While most of us were standing there with our mouths open, thinking,
Do something!
Miles crashed through the tables and chairs, grabbed Jimmy around the middle, and jammed his fists up under Jimmy's rib cage until the small piece of meat shot out of Jimmy's mouth. Jimmy lived, but another minute and he could have been brain-dead,
which is pretty much like being dead, or he could have been dead-dead.

The point is you die. Most of the time you don't see it coming.

•  •  •  •

I used to cover my head with a black hoodie thinking it'd help me be invisible. But a seventeen-year-old male walking the streets alone in a hoodie automatically invites suspicion. I swear it's why I was questioned once by an officer. I gave him some story about how I was on my way home, and he let me off with a warning. Sometimes I wear a baseball cap. The front hangs over my face like a duck's bill, casting a shadow I try to hide in.

Tonight's been uneventful. I walked underneath the bridge where the LA river trickles into the cement arroyo, steering clear of the narrow path that curves up alongside the back part of the bridge. I made the mistake of going that way a couple of months ago and ran into a homeless man and his knife. To be fair, it was the middle of the night and I probably scared the guy. I didn't stick around to find out.

When I step onto the bridge, it narrows in front of me like a tunnel. The usual dizziness comes, what I guess is vertigo, along with the bile. I resist the urge to throw up. Taking deep breaths, I close my eyes and practice one of Chris's meditation techniques that has actually proved useful. I simply relax and don't stop any image or thought from entering my mind.

I'm back in the car. Grace is next to me. She's singing along to the radio, like she always does. Her voice is a deep alto. We're going . . . where are we going again? The movies? I can't remember.

The tall lampposts, each lit with five small globes, string along the bridge like Christmas lights. I'm laughing. Then it's as if there's an explosion and there's light everywhere, like I'm inside of it.

“Mark,” Grace says right before the music of screeching tires and scraping metal. Which is followed by the sounds of our car flipping and rolling. The
crack
of bone breaking and glass shattering.

My head hits a window. I'm hanging upside down, the seat belt cutting into my chest. And Grace—Grace is next to me. Her eyes are open, and she's holding her breath. It is so quiet. I'm waiting, waiting to hear her breathe.

The image fades, and I keep moving forward on the bridge. I can't believe it's the last week of summer vacation. How did that happen? It's not like I'm dreading school, it's more like I've lost track of time. Or maybe time has lost track of me.

Cars occasionally drive by, but I'm mostly alone. I stop in the middle of the bridge, where a square concrete slab acts as a bench. I stand on it and reach up to touch the top of the black iron spikes of the suicide bars. I push down, but they're
not sharp enough to pierce the skin. Even though I'm not super tall, 5'10", I easily scale the rail and climb over.

On the other side, I hold the bars and lean forward, like I'm a skier who has jumped and now flies through the air. The water rushes below. It's dark, but the light from the bridge and the surrounding buildings is enough to let me see the concrete below. If I hurl myself forward with enough velocity, maybe I can reach the trees in the arroyo.

It happened in the 1930s. Some distraught mom wrapped her baby girl in a blanket, kissed her, and threw her off the bridge before jumping after her. The mom died, but the girl was caught in the branches of a tree. She lived. I would have liked to have seen that. I picture the white blanket unraveling, trailing after her like white smoke, snagging in the tree.

I stretch my body out farther, though I hold tight to the rails.

“Grace!” I yell into the darkness.

No one answers back.

I try again. “Grace!” Not even an echo.

“It should have been me,” I whisper.

I close my eyes and see her again, that blank stare. The guilt overwhelms me, and I wish I were the dead one. Really, it would be so easy.

I try to feel it, that space between wanting to live and wanting to die, as if it's tangible, someplace I can crawl into. I
strain against the bridge and the air. Only my fingertips hold my weight.

The steel bar cuts into my fingers. My arms start to shake. I open my eyes.

Someday I will die, but not today. I climb over the bars and make my way back to the side road where I parked the car.

I
shut off the engine and look up at my house. It's dark, except for the light in the kitchen, the one left on to scare away robbers.

Tap. Tap. Tap
. I jump. Hanna's face peers at me through the car window. Her brown hair is pulled back into a high ponytail.

“What the hell?” I open the door.

“Nice seeing you, too, Mr. Grumpy Pants.”

She nods, the sign for me to follow. I know I only have one choice, so I head after her. If I don't, I'll hear about it by not hearing about it, and Hanna's silent treatment is almost as bad as hearing about it.

I glance at my house. No movement. That's good. It means
the parentals are still asleep. In a couple of strides, I'm even with her.

“Couldn't sleep?” she whispers.

I shrug. She knows I go somewhere. She knows I come back. That's about it. And that's all she needs to know. I'm sure Hanna has her suspicions, but we don't discuss them.

“You?”

“Steve's over.”

“Oh.” Steve is her mom's boyfriend, some super-off-the-chart-brainiac designer who works at JPL, as in Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They do all kinds of high-tech things, like make spacecrafts and send them to Mars. He's decent, but it's got to be weird knowing your mom's having sex with the guy just a few doors down from your room.

“Want to stay at my house?” I ask.

She looks at me funny. “Yeah, I'm sure your parents would go for that.”

“What? I'll sneak you out before they even wake up. They sleep in on Saturdays. Besides, it's not like you haven't stayed over before.”

“True, but . . .”

“Right,” I say. I know what she's thinking. Hanna used to have sleepovers with Grace, which made more sense. We are all—no, we
were
all—the same age: Grace and me sharing the
same birthday because of the whole twin thing, and Hanna only a couple of months younger than us. We would all hang out until it was time for bed, and then I'd hear the two of them giggling through the wall between our bedrooms. Alone on the other side, I always wondered what they were laughing about, jealous that I wasn't in on the joke.

Hanna and I walk in the dark because there are no streetlights. The neighborhood is quiet. No one is peeking out at us through slightly parted curtains. Most people are asleep.

“Or we could just stay up all night,” she says.

Up all night? I have nothing going on tomorrow—today, actually—except a couple hours of bass practice. I could technically lose a night and still make it up before school starts. It's not like I sleep much anyway. Chris gave me something to help, but it didn't. I needed a brain wipe, not a sleeping pill. So instead I walk the bridge, or I put on headphones and plug in my electric bass and play until it's morning. I probably wouldn't get any sleep tonight. Besides, Hanna and I are overdue for an all-nighter, so I agree.

Hanna opens the gate that leads to her backyard. She tries to be quiet, but the hinges let out a slow whine. She freezes and her green eyes look at me all huge as if we've just been busted.