Page 12 of Hale

Rage and cry. Rage and cry.

Nobody fucking cares either. Not like Mom did. I was frustrating to her, but she tried. Researched new things all the time in an effort to help me. I loved her for wanting to help me in a way that didn’t feel like she was taking over my life. But the one who helped the most was Dad. He was funny and seemed to always be relaxed. It relaxed me too. I know his job was hard and it hurt his back, but he’d come home and give me all of his smiles.

The girl in the mirror, who looks like her daddy, cries.

Some days, I wonder if I even know her anymore. Some days, I don’t know this person who fills her body. Some days, I feel so lost.

No one will ever find me.

Maybe I do need fixing.

But it will take more than one pink and white pill.

The girl in the mirror must know the secret to happiness because she swallows them. Gags and gags and has to use water from the sink. But she swallows them. All of them. She wants to be fixed.

And me?

I clutch the side of the sink, nausea crashing into me like a giant wave. I’m going to throw up. I splash cold water on my face, but it doesn’t help. I’m sweating and dizzy.

I wonder if I asked Hudson his secrets to happiness, would he tell me?

Would he say, “Rylie, you just have to not be a fuck-up. Easy.”

And would I say, “Ahhh, now I understand.”

I’d be normal just like my brother.

I could be an aunt, a much better aunt than Aunt Becky, to the little baby in Amy’s belly. I would spoil it and whisper secrets to it. Tell it exactly how not to be a fuck-up.

“Easy,” I would say. And the baby would understand.

Unlike me.

The baby wouldn’t have to crawl behind in his brother’s shadows his entire life, trying to be good enough. The baby would start life with the upper hand.

I would help the baby.

The baby would thank me.

The room spins and bile comes up my throat. I barely manage to reach the toilet before I’m retching. All the normal pills splash into the toilet, splattering my face with gross water. I’m reminded that my happiness can’t be fixed with a pill or thirty. My happiness is something that sits in the bottom of the commode, just waiting for someone to come flush it all away.

Blackness crawls around me, threatening to swallow me under.

To flush me down along with those happy pills.

If I could talk to the blackness, I’d say, “Take me.”

And it would.

But unfortunately, I can’t talk to blackness. My happy pills don’t get to make me happy. Brothers don’t tell their sisters the secret of life.

In my world, I exist alone, surrounded by people.

A nightmare. A paradox. A harsh sentencing for a crime I didn’t commit.

Blackness swarms around me like a cloud of angry bees.

It stings inside and out. All over.