Forget You(40)
Author: Jennifer Echols

But she walked quietly into the hospital with me, without once pulling a razor blade out of her shoe or collapsing into a seizure. When I told the receptionist who we were, four security guards descended on us and swept my mom away down the hall, all business and alacrity to prove they had their shit together even if a brilliant loony did slip through their grasp every now and again.

The receptionist asked me to wait. Eventually a shrink took me into a courtyard garden. Amid the music of bubbling fountains and the heady scent of oleander bushes that were probably pruned by lobotomized men with fingernail clippers, the shrink told me many things that were ironic, perfect as punch lines, even better than the chicken that crossed the road. I walked to the hospital exit reviewing the punch lines over and over in my head so I could repeat them to Doug exactly the right way.

When he saw me coming across the parking lot, he got out of the police car–door open, crutches out first, then his good foot, heaving himself upward. He crutched around the open door and slammed it shut with his hip. Then he rounded to the front of the car and hopped onto the hood, sliding his butt around to find a comfortable spot in a way I knew was meant to piss his brother off. He patted the hood beside him. I looked to Officer Fox for approval to sit on his police car, but he stared up at the roof as if praying for strength.

I slid onto the hot hood beside Doug. Though the night had settled, the air warmed me now that I wasn’t hanging out in a wet bathing suit. And the hospital corridors had been refrigerated like they needed to preserve their human specimens for study. I relaxed into the hot hood defrosting my ass.

Doug watched me.

I recited the punch lines I’d memorized. "The doctor said at first they thought my mom was depressed, since she attempted suicide. So they put her on an antidepressant, but it pushed her into a manic episode, which causes people to do things like escape from the psych ward and jerk their daughters out of pools when they are winning a heat. And do you know why the drug pushed her into a manic episode?"

No, why? Doug was supposed to say drily, setting me up for the next punch line. Instead, he only watched me with his big sea-green eyes and shook his head.

I delivered my line anyway. "Because my mom isn’t just depressed. She has bipolar disorder. It took them a week and a half and a jailbreak to figure this out, when I could have told them in the first place. I mean, I didn’t know what was wrong with her, but I could have told them she’d been depressed for a few weeks and then so high for a few weeks that she’d gone to the doctor to get a prescription for sleeping pills, which of course came in handy when she got depressed again and needed to commit suicide. They could have figured it out before now."

This time Doug knew his line. "Why didn’t you tell them before?"

"They didn’t ask me. They wouldn’t let me see her. They told my dad that when people attempt suicide, their families are part of the problem, so they don’t let the crazies see their families while they’re being treated."

Doug didn’t laugh or even gape at me in disbelief. He just kept staring at me. He got the highest grade in the class on every English test, yet he didn’t understand the exquisite irony of this situation. I knew he didn’t understand when he said, "They didn’t mean you helped make her crazy. They meant your dad screwing his employee. But they don’t know stuff like that when a patient first shows up. They have to keep everybody away from the patients just in case."

"Y ou’re not getting it," I said. "If the doctors had given me some credit instead of viewing me as a bothersome child when I came to the emergency room with her, I could have prevented this whole problem!"

Now Doug watched me with his chin down like a librarian or a badass nanny examining me through bifocals. He was passing judgment on me. Worse, with his chin down he was looking up at me through his long black lashes. He was passing judgment on me in a very sexy way without even meaning to. And I had a boyfriend back home who hugged me only when prompted.

Sliding down from the hood, I grumbled, "I shouldn’t have told you anything."

"Hey." He grabbed my hand before I could step out of his reach. "I’m not acting like you wanted me to act. What did you want me to do?" He leaned forward and his grip was strong. Unless I read him wrong, he was serious.

I shook my hand loose and folded my arms on my chest. "I wanted you to laugh with me and be outraged with me and do something other than sit here and stare at me and feel sorry for me."

Still he stared at me, not understanding.

"It’s hereditary," I continued in a rush. "The doctor told me what the warning signs are. Depression . . . that’s obvious. Then people cycle to mania. They’re workaholics. They want to take care of everything."

"But you’re like that naturally."

"They’re impulsive," I added.

Doug cocked his head. "Like what? Having sex on the first date?"

I squealed, "Brandon and I are in lo–"

Doug reached out and put two fingers over my lips. "Y had sex with Brandon the same night your mom swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. To me that

ou doesn’t sound like you have bipolar disorder. It sounds like you’re just run-of-the-mill screwed up. Not crazy."

"She is crazy," Officer Fox rumbled from inside the police car. 12 I squinted at Officer Fox, but I couldn’t see him clearly through the windshield reflecting the lights from the hospital. This was probably the fourth thing I’d ever heard him say. I wanted to double-check that I’d heard him correctly before I disrespected a police officer by cussing him out.

Apparently he had said what I thought he’d said. Doug smiled. "My brother thinks that you’re crazy and you need to get checked out yourself."

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath through my nose, opened my eyes. "Why?"

Doug spoke in his usual sarcastic tone. If I’d listened to him without watching him, I wouldn’t have known anything was wrong. But as he spoke, he held his head still, like he balanced on a tightrope. "When you found your mom that day, you were very calm. Y didn’t cry."

I hadn’t thought about it. But now that I allowed myself to consider it . . . A seventeen-year-old discovered her mom after a suicide attempt, and she didn’t even cry? That did sound crazy.

I concentrated on Doug’s green eyes. "I knew she was there because her car was in the lot, but when I went in, the lights were off and the air was cold." I felt goose bumps prick up at the memory of stepping from the broiling afternoon into that cold, dark space.

Doug slid down from the hood and moved toward me, balancing on one crutch.