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Daisy and Davis both tried to visit, but I wanted to be alone, in bed. I didn't read or watch TV; neither could adequately distract me. I just lay there, almost catatonic, as my mother hovered, perpetually near, breaking the silence every few minutes with a question-phrased-as-a-statement. Each day is a little better? You're feeling okay? You're improving? The inquisition of declarations.
I didn't even turn on my phone for a while, a decision endorsed by Dr. Singh. When I finally did power it up, I felt an insoluble fear. I both wanted to find a lot of text messages and didn't.
Turns out I had over thirty messages--not just from Daisy and Davis, although they had written, but also from Mychal and other friends, and even some teachers.
--
I returned to school on a Monday morning in early December. I wasn't sure if the new medication was working, but I also wasn't wondering whether to take it. I felt ready, like I had returned to the world--not my old self, but myself nonetheless.
Mom drove me to school. Harold had been totaled, and anyway, I was too scared of driving.
"Excited or nervous?" Mom asked me. She drove with both hands on the steering wheel, ten and two o'clock.
"Nervous," I said.
"Your teachers, your friends, they all understand, Aza. They just want you well and will support you one hundred percent, and if they don't, I will crush them."
I smiled a little. "Everyone knows, is all. That I went crazy or whatever."
"Oh, sweetie," she said. "You didn't go crazy. You've always been crazy." Now I laughed, and she reached over to squeeze my wrist.
Daisy was waiting on the front steps. Mom stopped the car, and I got out, the weight of the backpack still tender against my ribs. It was a cold day, but the sun was bright even though it had just risen, and I kept blinking away the light. It had been a while since I'd spent much time outside.
Daisy looked different. Her face brighter somehow. It took me a second to realize she'd gotten a haircut, a just-under-the-chin bob that looked really good.
"Can I hug you without lacerating your liver?"
"I like the new hairstyle," I said as we hugged.
"You're sweet, but we both know it's a disaster."
"Listen," I said. "I'm really sorry."
"Me too, but we have forgiven each other and now we will live happily ever after."
"Seriously, though," I said. "I feel terrible about--"
"I do, too," she said. "You gotta read my new story, man. It's a fifteen-thousand-word apology set on postapocalyptic Jedha. What I want to say to you, Holmesy, is that yes, you are exhausting, and yes, being your friend is work. But you are also the most fascinating person I have ever known, and you are not like mustard. You are like pizza, which is the highest compliment I can pay a person."
"I'm just really sorry, Daisy, for not being--"
"Jesus Christ, Holmesy, you can sure hold a grudge against yourself. You are my favorite person. I want to be buried next to you. We'll have a shared tombstone. It'll read, 'Holmesy and Daisy: They did everything together, except the nasty.' Anyway, how are you?" I shrugged. "Want me to keep talking?" I nodded. "You know how sometimes people will say, like, oh, she really loves the sound of her voice? I do seriously love the sound of my voice. I've got a voice for radio." She turned and started walking up the stairs to get in line for the metal detectors. "So I know what you're wondering: Daisy, are you still dating Mychal? Where's your car? What happened to your hair? The answers are no, sold, and a cut became necessary after Elena intentionally put three pieces of chewed bubble gum in my hair while I was sleeping. It's been a long two weeks, Holmesy. Should I elaborate?"
I nodded.
"With pleasure," she answered as we cleared the metal detectors. "So with Mychal it really boiled down to my need to be young and wild and free--like, I had this near-death experience and then thought, Do I really want to waste my youth in a capital-R Relationship? And so I was, like, 'Let's see other people,' and he was, like, 'No,' and I was, like, 'Please,' and he was, like, 'I want to be in a monogamous relationship,' and I was, like, 'I just don't want the weight of this, like, Thing dominating my life,' and he was, like, 'I'm not a thing,' and then we broke up. I think technically he dumped me in the end, but it was one of those things where you'd need, like, a three-judge panel to determine who was technically at fault.
"Anyway, then with the car, it turns out that cars are expensive to own and also it turns out that they can hurt you, so I got a refund because I had it less than sixty days, and now I'm just going to Uber everywhere for the rest of my life, because then it's kind of like I have every car, and also as a rich person I deserve to be chauffeured. Should I keep going?"
We'd reached my locker now, and I was surprised to find that I remembered the combination. There were so many human bodies around me. I kind of couldn't believe it. I pulled my locker open. I hadn't done any homework. I was behind on everything. The hallway was so loud, so crowded. "Yeah," I said.
"No problem. I can do this all day. This is another reason we're destined to be together--you're so good at not talking. So, with Elena, she put gum in my hair on purpose while I was sleeping, and the next morning I was, like, 'Why is there chewed gum in my hair?' and she was, like, 'Ha-ha!' I was, like, 'Elena, you have no understanding of humor. It isn't funny just to make someone's life worse. Like, if I broke your leg, would that be funny?' And she was, like, 'Ha-ha!' So I got this fancy haircut, and believe you me, I paid for it out of Elena's college fund. My parents made me set up a college fund for Elena, BTW.
"In other news, the whole Mychal thing has made our lunch table a little awkward, so we're going to have a two-person picnic outside. I know it's slightly cold, but trust me, sitting next to Mychal in the cafeteria is far colder. Are you so ready to go to biology right now and just absolutely murder it? Like, in forty-seven minutes, the dead and bloodless carcass of honors biology will be laid before your feet. God, a lot happened since you lost your mind. Is that rude to say?"
"Actually, the problem is that I can't lose my mind," I said. "It's inescapable."
"That is precisely how I feel about my virginity," Daisy said. "Another reason Mychal and I were doomed--he doesn't want to have sex unless he's in love, and yes, I know that virginity is a misogynistic and oppressive social construct, but I still want to lose it, and meanwhile I've got this boy hemming and hawing like we're in a Jane Austen novel. I wish boys didn't have all these feelings I have to manage like a fucking psychiatrist." Daisy walked me to the door of my classroom, opened it, and then walked me to my desk. I sat down. "You know I love you, right?" I nodded. "My whole life I thought I was the star of an overly earnest romance movie, and it turns out I was in a goddamned buddy comedy all along. I gotta go to calc. Good to see you, Holmesy."
