Behind the Falls Read online

  “It’s not about Jensen. I don’t even know why I put it on the wall. I just felt it so I wrote it. Maybe it will be a song someday.” He shrugs. I read the words again.

  I don’t know why they touch me like they do but I want to memorize them. I don’t just want to memorize these words. I realize I want to feel them. I never really cared about relationships or dating or if I’d ever even kiss a girl before I moved to Lansing and now I suddenly have some kind of longing that I didn’t have before my whole life changed. For the first time I feel incomplete in myself. Maybe I always felt it and I was just so burdened by anxiety and panic and the ridiculous mess that until this year was my normal mental state that I just didn’t notice. Maybe there wasn’t room for it before or something.

  “Our parents are going out on Thursday and I’m watching the kids. Do you want to come over after school and join us for dinner?” Max asks, breaking the silence.

  “Yeah, that sounds good. I should probably go. My mom is probably issuing a missing person’s complaint by now,” I say as I get up. It’s too comfortable in Max’s room. If I don’t leave now I might fall asleep.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Max offers.

  “Nah, I think I know where the door is by now. See you tomorrow.” I wave a vague goodbye towards Lydia and Mark as I leave. I don’t run home. I have to put my jacket back on since it’s cold now that I’m not running and I’m actually shivering a little but I take my time. My mom has a fit when I come home and threatens to staple my cell phone to my hand if I can’t remember to take it with me the next time. Dad won the dinner argument and after the shower I have the best Cuban sandwich I’ve ever had. Life is good.

  ****

  For the rest of the school week Tabitha is still a little standoffish and less friendly than she was before we kissed. I try not to let it bug me but I can’t help thinking I should have done things differently. Instead of letting everything happen maybe I should have gone inside, told Max where she was and that she was upset and let him deal with it. As a result of Tabitha and her moods I eat lunch with Sherrie the rest of the week.

  Sherrie is really trying to sell me on this Halloween party at the club in Lancaster. By the middle of the week I finally tell her I’m probably maybe going to go just so she’ll let it drop. I really enjoy hanging out with Sherrie and if it was just a local party I wouldn’t be so hesitant to go. I just don’t know how comfortable I feel going to a club out of town.

  I’m not even sure I feel comfortable hanging out at the Maxwell’s lately. I feel like I could have an unexpected attack at any time in any place. I should start taking my meds regularly but then my parents will know something is up with me. I can’t do this to them again. I can’t let them know that it was pointless to move to this small town where I would feel more comfortable going to school because I will always end up this way again eventually.

  If I’m going to be completely honest with myself (and I may as well be honest with myself because I’m not being honest with anyone else) my anxiety is beginning to intensify. I’ve had peaks and valleys throughout my whole life. I’ve had stretches of near normalcy and also stretches of times that were so bad I couldn’t leave the house. There’s never really any rhyme or reason as to what will start a bad spell. It doesn’t really have to be anything. I’m not going to blame this on what happened with Tabitha and Max last weekend.

  There’s no one particular thing that I’m worrying about I just have a general feeling of anxiety, fear and unease. I lay awake at night worrying about what will happen the next day. I worry about my parents finding out that I’m less than okay. I worry that my friends will find out that there’s something wrong with me. It seems that my number one fear is (as has been the case in the past) fear. I’m afraid of being afraid, afraid of the anxiety itself.

  If I could talk to Dr. Bachman maybe we could sort it out, figure out where this is coming from and start to deal with it. Of course that’s not an option. Dr. Cooper is my only option. If I tell my parents I want a different doctor they might listen to me, but they’ll also ask a lot of questions, questions I don’t want to answer. I’m just so tired of this.

  On Thursday my parents are going to some show in Hershey with the Maxwells. Max tells me to just come straight to his house after school but my parents are going to be heading over there anyway so I decide to go home first and get homework out of the way. Max and I do homework together a lot but sometimes Sammi can be very demanding of our attention and I have a ton of work tonight.

  I’m just finishing up my reading for history class when the panic attack happens. One minute I’m reading about the Third Reich and the next I’m gasping for air, heart racing, ears ringing and the pain brings me to my knees. It’s the especially bad kind, the kind that convinces me I’m dying. I pull my knees to my chest and curl into the smallest ball that I can as I gasp and sweat and shake.

  Then things get really weird. Suddenly it’s like I’m not there anymore. It’s like I’m a different person outside of my own skin watching Noah freak out on his bedroom floor. It’s as if the pain and the shortness of breath, racing heart and cold sweats belong to someone else. I start to wonder if this is even happening. Am I awake or is this a weird dream? I feel like I’m floating just above where I really am and somehow I’m not really Noah anymore. I’m not sure how long this lasts but it’s over as abruptly as it began and the only signs that any of it happened, the panic attack, the weird third person dream feeling and the pain is the fact that I’m still on the floor and my clothes are drenched in sweat.

  I rise painfully, muscles that were locked in fear screaming their protest, and I make my way to the bathroom. Once I’ve locked the door I feel safe somehow. I hesitantly look in the mirror. There’s an irrational moment of panic that when I look in the mirror it won’t be my reflection I see. Maybe there will be no reflection at all.

  Thank God my own face looks back at me. I didn’t realize how convinced I was that it wouldn’t be my face until I see myself and feel such immense relief I could cry. Actually, apparently I was crying at some point. My face is streaked with tears. I’m pale with spots of red high on my cheeks and my bangs are well past my eyes so looking at myself is like looking through a forest of hair but that’s me in the mirror.

  I have no choice now but to take a shower. My clothes are damp and I’m sour with the smell of fear sweat. Once the water is running hot I just stand under the spray and try to figure out what that was. It definitely wasn’t just a panic attack. It wasn’t regular anxiety.

  “What.The.Fuck,” I say out loud. The only conclusion I can come up with is that I’m really losing my mind. It’s probably time to talk to my parents but I just can’t. I’m too afraid of what they’ll say, how things will change and if this new development is something else…do I even want to know that I’m losing it? Funny thing about crying in the shower, you can convince yourself it’s really just the spray of water running down your face. I guess I’m not even being honest with myself anymore.

  I don’t really want to go to the Maxwell’s for the evening but I know my parents would rather I don’t stay home alone. They don’t even know about the freak out earlier and still they would feel better if I hang out with Max than if I just stay home. How old will I be before they don’t think I need some sort of babysitter?

  “Max is expecting you. He’ll probably appreciate the company while he watches the kids,” Mom says when I tell her I think I’ll just stay home. There’s no good way to argue my way out of it so I begrudgingly get in the car.

  When we get there, Lydia answers the door but Sammi is close behind and she grabs my hand and drags me to see the gerbils just like she always does. They’ve grown so fast they’re almost as big as their mother now. I think that the Maxwells will need to do something about separating gerbils and getting a bigger Habitrail or soon there’s going to be a population explosion.

  “Max is in the kitchen with Matty. I think dinner is just about ready,” Lydia tells
me. When Mark enters the room he shakes hands with Dad and gives Mom a peck on the cheek. Mom hugs me before they leave.

  “Everything will be just fine,” she says in my ear before they leave. If she really believes that why does she feel the need to say it? I find myself wishing I had taken some meds even if asking for them would let my parents know what’s going on with me.

  Sammi takes my hand again and pulls me into the kitchen. Max had said earlier today that he was taking care of dinner so I assumed pizza or some other kind of carry out. The kitchen smells amazing and things are sizzling while Max mans the stove and Matty eats dry Cheerios in his high chair. The table is already set and Sammie directs me to a seat before taking one herself.

  “Dinner is almost ready,” Max says over his shoulder. I watch as he flips the contents of the sizzling pan before placing it back on the heat. Next he takes some rice out of a pot and puts it in a separate bowl before opening a door next to the stove that holds a spice cabinet.

  “Hot or wussy?” he asks.

  “Uh, hot but not too crazy hot,” I say. “You cook?” As usual, I am stating the obvious.

  “I’m pretty damned good at it,” Max laughs as he proceeds to season the pot on the stove. “I hope you like fajitas.” He takes the rice he separated from the pot before and puts it on a plate for Matty with some steak from the fajita mix. The rice is some sort of Spanish rice with salsa and black beans. He gives some of the rice to Sammi but she’s insisting on building her own fajitas.

  I don’t have much of an appetite to be honest, not after what happened earlier, but I take a warm tortilla and start building a fajita. Max dishes me out some rice before sitting down to his own meal. He doesn’t bother saying grace. I guess that’s just something his parents do. The food is so good that I find at least some appetite.

  “Dad and I were on our own for quite a while,” he says between bites of food. “We sort of learned our way around the kitchen together. It was just something we liked to do together. The first date he had with Lydia was actually inviting her to the house so we could cook for her. He said he wasn’t going to waste any time dating a woman that couldn’t be bothered with me.” He smiles at the memory.

  Sammi picks up the conversation while the rest of us eat. She’s actually really smart and likes to tell us what she learned in school. Matty is making a mess of himself with the rice and beef and probably gets as much on himself as in himself. Max laughs when I point this out.

  “It’s nothing some soap and water can’t take care of. There’s a reason we eat in the kitchen and not in the dining room with the carpet,” he says.

  For some reason this reminds me of my Gran and how she always insisted on eating in the dining room. Dad says it was just what they did when she was younger. It’s how she was brought up so it’s what she preferred. We never eat in that dining room anymore. It makes me miss Gran to think of that empty room. I’m tired and full and just a little sad as we eat. As much as I like hanging out with Max I’d really rather be at home tonight.

  Sammi is still chatting away and Max makes a comment here or there to let her know that he’s listening but I don’t think it matters to her. I think she’d be chatting away even if she was in an empty room. I can feel Max’s eyes on me occasionally. I don’t look up from my plate. I don’t want him to SEE and ask me what’s wrong. I’ve eaten one fajita and most of my rice and I’m just pushing leftover pieces of food around my plate with my fork until everyone else is done eating.

  First Max cleans up Matty then he puts the leftover food away. Sammi is excused to go watch television before it’s time for her to go to bed and the kitchen gets really quiet without her presence. I help Max clean up the kitchen. I’ve been here often enough to know my way around.

  “Noah!” calls Matty.

  “What?” I say giving him a smile.

  “Like Noah,” he tells me. Max liberates him from his high chair and swings him into the air.

  “Yes, we like Noah,” he agrees. Matty laughs while Max swings him around then plants him on one hip. “Probably not a good idea to play airplane right after he’s eaten,” he laughs. I can’t get over the contrast between the way Max looks with his hair in his eyes and multiple piercings and the way he is with his younger siblings. With the kitchen cleaned up and Sammi happily watching TV, Max takes Matty upstairs for a bath and to get him ready for bed. I keep Sammi company in the living room. She tells me all about Monster High which I assume is the cartoon she’s watching on DVD.

  Max returns with a baby monitor and settles in next to me on the couch. “One more show then it’s time for you to get ready for bed,” he tells Sammi. She tries to bargain with him and eventually he caves and says she can watch two episodes.

  “Sorry,” he apologizes. “If you’re bored you could go down to my room and watch a movie or something until she goes to bed.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve finally figured out who all of the characters are. I like the ghoul.” Max laughs and stretches out his legs and puts his hands behind his head to get comfortable. When Sammi’s two shows are over he takes her upstairs to get ready for bed and I head down to his room.

  My head aches, I’m tired and just out of sorts in general. I browse Max’s books while I wait. There’s no point starting a movie until Max gets here. I think my head hurts too much to actually read but I like looking at his collection. He has a lot of the kinds of books that have proven difficult if not impossible for most people, especially kids our age. I’ve only read a few of them…things like Atlas Shrugged (which I did not love), One Hundred Years of Solitude, Finnegans Wake and The Sound and the Fury which I really struggled to finish but then he also has things like The Stand and The Passage and the Harry Potter series to balance it out a bit.

  Max walks in with the baby monitor in hand and puts it on his desk before making the bed into a couch with all of the pillows piled up against the headboard like he does whenever we watch movies.

  “Sammi has quite the crush on you,” he smiles as he arranges pillows. “All she could talk about when she was getting ready for bed was Noah this and Noah that. Matty also pretty much thinks you’re the bee’s knees.”

  “I am the shiny new toy,” I say as I give a half-hearted laugh. Max is finished arranging pillows so I kick off my shoes and settle in making myself comfortable. As usual, Max takes out his contacts first and dons glasses. I’m still schooling him in old school horror so I select Hitchcock’s The Birds. It’s been a really long time since I watched this. We watched Psycho a few weeks ago even though Max had already seen it. He hasn’t seen The Birds yet but he likes Hitchcock.

  Max is paying attention to the film but I’m not really seeing it. I’m in my own world just thinking about the attack I had earlier and worrying about what that other bit was all about. I’m still missing Gran after thinking about her earlier. I just feel a little off and I’m hoping that Max doesn’t notice I’m not myself.

  “I like the implied pun. I mean it’s a murder of crows and they’re getting ready to kill,” Max looks at me and chuckles during the scene with the crows in the playground of the school. He stops chuckling and pauses the movie. “Noah? What’s wrong?” he says quietly.

  “Nothing,” I say, or try to say but I realize that as I’ve been sitting here I’ve been crying silent tears. What the Hell? I KNEW coming here tonight was a bad idea. I’m too unstable right now to be any good around people and now what is Max going to think? I feel my cheeks get hot as I try to wipe away the tears but I just can’t seem to make them stop coming.

  “Hey, don’t do that,” he says gently. “Don’t say it’s nothing when it’s obviously something.”

  “I don’t know,” I blubber. “I guess I’m just missing my Gran and I know that’s silly because it’s not like I ever saw her all that much…”

  “Yeah, but even if you only saw her two or three times a year, you still knew she was here. You could visit, you could call and she’d be here. You feel the way you feel. It
’s valid to feel whatever you feel.” He puts an arm around my shoulders and I let my head fall on his shoulder.

  “I think I’m homesick for Naperville. I miss my cousin. I miss our house. I don’t know. I’m just out of sorts. That must sound so stupid to you. You’ve moved around so much.”

  “Well yeah, exactly…I’ve moved around so much that leaving is what I’m used to. You lived in the same house for how many years? You lived in the same neighborhood, knew the same people and you never went to public school before coming to Lansing. I’d say it’s about time you had a little meltdown.”

  For some reason the fact that Max is so understanding makes me cry more. I don’t know what it is about being comforted that makes me cry harder. I’ve always been that way.

  “I’m sorry,” I manage to sputter between the stupid crying and trying to breathe. Max gives me a squeeze and rests his cheek against the top of my head.

  “Don’t apologize for having feelings, No. Just cry it out and you’ll feel better,” he says quietly.

  “But this is so embarrassing,” I say because I’m mortified right now. I’m also lying to him because it’s more than missing Gran and being homesick…it’s the anxiety and everything else too.

  “Don’t be embarrassed, Noah. It’s just you and me here and I’m sure as Hell not going to judge you.”

  “I’m just so…overwhelmed,” I sigh.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Max offers. I really wish I could. I can’t talk to anyone except Kimber about this increasing anxiety and I can’t reach her. I wish I could REALLY talk to Max about it. It’s impossible though. I mean, you tell someone you have cancer and they’re all sympathetic and “there for you” because physical illness is something that happens TO you. But tell someone you have some kind of mental illness and they run from you as fast as they can. It’s like mental health (or a lack of) is your own fault, your own weakness. I’ve learned this from experience.