Who Put This Song On? Read online

  “Um…um,” I stutter aimlessly. “Well, nothing happened. I don’t know why I’m…feeling kind of low lately.”

  Dr. Li smiles flatly. “Okay. We’ll see if we can get you feeling more like yourself.”

  (But: Myself seems to be the problem.)

  He writes me a prescription for a starter dose of Wellbutrin and breaks everything down. Some people, he says, are depressed only once in their lives. Others get depressed sometimes, when they’re triggered. And some people just need to be treated for depression all the time. It’s just a thing they have that doesn’t go away. I’m obviously that one.

  If the Wellbutrin doesn’t work, we’ll try Prozac next, or Lexapro, Dr. Li tells me. (I guess there are all these different types of antidepressants and inhibitors?) There will be months and months of trial and error and maybe some serious side effects. I’m told to watch for anxiety attacks, that if they become regular, I will also be prescribed Xanax. I’m told to look out for extreme fatigue, that if it persists, I’ll be prescribed Adderall. I’m picturing myself morphing into a literal medicine cabinet, like the wardrobe from Beauty and the Beast.

  “So, you’re seventeen. Gonna be a junior?” he asks casually, shuffling some papers.

  “Yup.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “Oh, I told the nurse before that I’m not sexually active.” I use air quotes and make it a little comedy routine. Doctors never really laugh at your jokes.

  “That’s not what I asked. Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No.” I fold my hands in my lap.

  “Hmm.” (Does he not believe me?) “Morgan, let me ask you something. You answered that you lost control one time—”

  “I didn’t plan it. I didn’t really want to hurt myself. I just—”

  He puts up his hand like a stop sign. I anxiously shift around on the crinkly paper underneath me.

  “Was it about a boy?”

  My eyes get wide with shock. “No! Nothing like that!”

  “It’s just that sometimes it’s common with teenage girls, you know, to have feelings of rejection or low self-esteem. Maybe you’re having trouble fitting in, or you aren’t getting attention from boys….”

  I shake my head furiously. “No, I mean, it just sucks being alive sometimes. That’s literally a fact!” (I seriously can’t be the only human in the history of time who acknowledges that existence is not always magnificent.)

  “I understand that, I do. Just as long as you know you are a bright and special young woman.”

  “Okay. No, I know, I do.”

  Jesus Christ. His whole thing is so corny.

  (I don’t know what’s pissing me off more: how reductive and antifeminist it was to assume that some dumb boy is causing my depression, or how quickly Dr. Li concluded that I’m basically a boyfriend-less loser. If I didn’t have low self-esteem before, he definitely made sure I wouldn’t go home without it.)

  “So, is your brother playing football again this year?”

  “Uh, yeah, I think.”

  “Good, good. You tell him I say hi. And your parents.”

  I nod. “I will.”

  “What are you…was it the school newspaper you worked on last year?”

  “Um, yearbook, yeah. I’m actually editor this year.”

  “Good to hear it. Well, keep up those grades. Still getting As?”

  “Yep, all As.”

  He stands up to leave and slaps me on the back on his way to the door. “Good girl. See? Life’s not so bad.”

  I forget to smile like I’m supposed to. The door slams shut.

  You know those commercials for antidepressants with the little cartoon egg that has a gray cloud hanging over it? Or the ones where a lady gazes sadly through a window at all her friends laughing it up in a park?

  The list of possible side effects is always so long that the commercials have to include a gratuitous montage of the formerly sad person grinning like crazy in various locations, finally laughing it up in a park.

  This is what I mean—nothing is risk-free. No solution is quite perfect, not drugs or religion or even love. There’s always the haunting threat of ending up right back in the dark pit where you started.

  That’s what I mean about the bird sweater, about all of it. I want be a formerly sad lady finally laughing it up in various locations, totally chill with wearing the bird sweater, delighted by parks and activities. I wish for it like a child makes a birthday wish—seriously, tightly. But what possible side effects am I risking?

  Also, wait a minute, where the fuck is my sticker? Are doctors not doing that anymore?

  ANOTHER SUNNY DAY I HATE

  It’s another beautiful day that I hate. Off to my certain hell of Rainbow flip-flops and bouncing messy buns, of flabby, sunburned teacher arms in flowered sundresses from 1995. The same cast of characters, shifted very slightly, like tectonic plates. I’m a different person too.

  Malcolm rides icily in the passenger’s seat this morning, looking through my CD case like it’s a menu for his last meal on earth. When Malcolm and I are friends, we are best friends. Things are fun and spontaneous around the house; we’re always joking, or sharing music, or watching a Disney Channel Original Movie we sickeningly know every word to. But I killed that entire vibe.

  (One of the things I hated most about the night of my “episode” was the look on my brother’s face as he peered from the next room at my breakdown. He looked like he was watching a bullfight. He looked at me like I was a monster, and he hasn’t looked at me the same since.)

  “What’s this?” Malcolm finally holds up a burned CD labeled in fading black marker:

  THIS AL

  BUM   IS

  PERFECT

  My handwriting. It’s Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane over the Sea.

  “It’s perfect.” I grin cheesily. (I make a lot of jokes to myself.)

  We don’t say anything, just listen to the first song uninterrupted.

  “Pretty good. What’s the band again?”

  “Neutral Milk Hotel. I know—the name makes no sense.”

  “Cool, maybe I’ll check it out.”

  “Take the CD! I’ll burn another copy. Besides,” I kid, “you need my whole collection, anyway, before I go to college.”

  “Okay,” he laughs. “I don’t know about all that.”

  Banter! I turn to him and we bust up with the giggles; we temporarily laugh it up. I roll down the windows and turn up the music. A moment of escape. My eighties BMW, Rudy, putts along, boxy and stale-smelling and glorious.

  The brisk morning all around you, the perfect soundtrack, a long road, and someone riding shotgun you trust more than yourself: it could be the way a movie starts.

  We pull into the parking lot for Vista Christian School and Vista Christian Church, the singular buzzkill. “Alllll right,” I exhale as I park between two identical Honda Civics. While Malcolm collects his stinky football pads and almost-empty backpack from the trunk, I glare at the giddy nerds scurrying around all enthused about their Christian education.

  Malcolm gives me an ingrained hug goodbye when some buddies howl at him from the entrance, and before he jogs off, we dab each other with goofy smiles, like no one can see us.

  “See ya.”

  “Have a good day, sis.”

  I made it. September. I know that sounds dramatic, but it’s true. I have infiltrated high school once again, and triumphantly, kinda. I count to five and summon every grain of energy in my body, preparing myself for a day of normality. Normality, which I wear like a too-tight hoodie. Maybe I can make it work. All I have to do is pretend. Say my lines. Let the day blur around me.

  But now I’m standing before the doors of my unfortunate, awkward reality. I’m not in the mood to pretend to care about God. I a
m totally not in the mood for all these awful smiles and idiotic people. Hordes of chipper white kids rush past me, reeking of Axe and sickly-sweet Victoria’s Secret perfume. I’m flooded with dread at the thought of all the months ahead—all the weird dramas I won’t see coming, all the possibility, the rumors and fights, the boys, the shame of PE, the pro-life, the African American History Month, the election stuff, the dances, so many freaking worship songs, not to mention keeping my antidepressants a secret. I won’t see any of it coming, just like last year, and I won’t be prepared.

  “Excuse you!” someone says under their breath. A jab at my elbow sends all the noise of the hallway rushing back to me.

  Some senior guys scowl as they push past. I mutter “Sorry” and a voice bellows, “What’s up with her outfit? Hey! What are you supposed to be? Are you in a play or something? Hey, you!”

  (It’s like I’m freaking Ruby Bridges or something. Why is this my existence?)

  (By the way, I’m wearing a very good outfit. I usually am. A vintage navy polka-dot shift dress and my high-top canvas Chucks. No one around here has style.)

  And, of course, following behind their snickering is Marissa, my old best friend, and Jordan Jacobsen, a generally terrible person who was once a nice-enough kid. Marissa’s just grinning at nothing in her little bubble, holding Jordan’s stiff, bored arm, wearing some terrible tank top. We notice each other at the same time, and my eyes pretend to dart around.

  “Hey,” her voice squeaks haltingly.

  I wave and grimace back. Suddenly a paw claps at my shoulder and I jump, startled. “Miss Morgan Parker!”

  I spin around dramatically. “Hi, Mr. K.”

  As tall and gray and corny as ever.

  “Can I look forward to you torturing me again in class this year? You’re in the AP section, right?”

  “Yeah…second period, I think.”

  “Bright and early, uh-oh!”

  I side-eye back at him. I get the sense he thinks our little rivalry is cute; I do not find it cute. He’s super annoying and obsessed with Reaganomics.

  “Don’t worry—they let me caffeinate in the teachers’ lounge now.” It’s true: I’m terrible without coffee.

  (All my teachers, so familiar with me and my whole thing, have no idea what to do with me. On the one hand, I’m consistently an excellent student. On the other hand, I’m a pain in the ass, I talk too much, I crack jokes freely and flippantly, I have one of the loudest laughs in America, and I blatantly disavow rules and decorum. The short, little black girl in the weird outfit, who you can hear cackling from all the way across the hall, who will never just do what she’s told, will never just smooth down the edges, assimilate better.)

  “Lucky me, and in an election year! You must be excited,” he says with a Grinch smile. “You’re probably loving all this Obama stuff.”

  “I mean, I can’t vote yet.” I shift my weight, consider screaming something about my time of the month and flying right back to my car. Instead I say my lines. “But, yes, for the record, I would be voting for the Democratic Party and the first black president of the United States. Like, duh!” Now I’m talking with my hands and everything, doing my shtick.

  “Of course! I have to admit it’s an interesting election cycle. So get ready!”

  Maybe I’m hallucinating: he does some kind of shoulder shimmy, flicks his fingers at me like liver-spotted guns. Ugh.

  Looking for my first-period classroom, I try to be anonymous, but it’s impossible. There are sixty of us in our class, and we’ve been together since seventh grade, some of us since pre-K. I forgot how exhausting and repetitive this day would be, with all of the How was your summer?! and Oh my gosh, hi! I’m not in the mood to catch up. It takes a lot of energy to fake-smile and lie through your teeth all day.

  My first class is Honors American Lit with Mr. Howard, who I had last year for Creative Writing. I pretty much won his heart with all my writings in that class. He’s the one who granted me teachers’ lounge access—he usually asks me to refill his cup, too.

  I’m a pain in the ass and all that, but I’m objectively a good student, and I mean well. I care about learning, I love reading, I’m passionate about writing, I don’t mind helping explain things to other students, and I genuinely want to be good, despite all the ways I don’t fit the usual profile. Something I’ve learned to do, at the very least, is be helpful. So my teachers enlist me for little tasks—grading, photocopying, note-taking—just to keep me busy. The school part of school is basically chill. The problem is that I’m here, and I’m me.

  Hungrily, I scan the syllabus during introductions. We’re doing poetry first, and I hate poetry. Mr. Howard hands out poems about cabins and farm animals by some old white men with beards, Robert Frost and Wally Longlegs or something.

  “Twenty minutes of quiet reading while I have my coffee,” he explains. “Sorry, did I say quiet? I mean completely and utterly silent.” He laughs at himself, and no one else does.

  I shoot up my hand. “Mr. Howard, this is gonna be a weird question.”

  Someone lets out a sinister snicker and says, “Of course.” I don’t even turn to look. Whatever—these people don’t read.

  “Yes, ma’am?” Mr. Howard takes a sip of his coffee from a mug that says No thank you. He has a squirrelly face—if he were a cartoon, he might be a villain, but in person it kinda makes him look trustworthy.

  “Can I sit on the floor while I’m reading? It helps me think.”

  “Whatever makes you happy.”

  After the summer I’ve been through, the least of my worries are the eye rolls spurred by my request, everyone laughing it up at me, the weirdo. Morgan, runner up for Class Clown, tied with the other black girl for Loudest, and sole original owner of the superlative Most Unique (not otherwise specified).

  I don’t care; now is about getting happy and comfortable, moving forward. I’ve looked into the face of the end of the world, and guess what? No one from school was there.

  PART WHERE I DO NOTHING SUGGESTED

  Another thing that annoys me about this high school inside a PacSun inside a church: glorified Sunday school teachers posing as experts in the scientific method or British literature telling me it’s time to “Get Serious,” that I need to “Prepare for the Future.” Meanwhile I’m like, Um actually, what I need to do is stop wanting to die.

  Everyone in the junior class is required to meet with the college counselor, Mrs. Martinez. (Last year she was the school nurse. I need explanations.) My appointment Friday morning lasts basically ten minutes—she tells me I should “consider the Christian colleges right here in Southern California!”

  Another thing I hate about it here is how almost every classroom is decorated with some version of that poster with the footprints on the beach, which I know is supposed to be inspiring but has always creeped me out. (What is the difference, seriously, between angels and ghosts? Why are we supposed to be afraid of one and cool with the other? And actually, same question goes for heaven and hell.) Mrs. Martinez has one of those posters right behind her desk, and I read the bad poem over and over while she talks.

  “A degree from a Christian college isn’t the Ivy League,” she says like a freaking infomercial, “but it’s nothing to sneeze at. You don’t have to sacrifice your walk with God for a rigorous education.”

  I nod. I will be doing none of what she suggests.

  When I am spit back into the empty hallways after her little brainwashing session, I take my time meandering to my locker. I really want to text David, but I don’t know the rules about who’s supposed to text who each day. Whatever. I go for it.

  Hello please save me I hate it here

  (His reply is instant!)

  hey

  DID

  YOU

  WATCH

  FIGHT

  CLUB

&nb
sp; YET

  ????????

  LOL

  Ok so

  I did, OMG! I will never hear the Pixies the same way again!

  Was I supposed to understand the ending?

  isn’t it craaaaazy?!

  I have some theories

  Heading to bio

  Oh cool

  Talk later?

  I type Yeah! Then Yeah. Then Sure sounds good. Then I just send a K.

  Down the hall, James and Meg are parked on some benches outside the library. They wave, so I go over and plop myself next to them, as if I have nothing better to do. I sort of don’t.

  “What’s up?”

  “We’re in ‘study hall,’ ” Meg says, making air quotes and rolling her eyes.

  “What are you guys up to for the rest of the day?”

  James is picking all the chocolate chips out of a bag of a trail mix. “Isn’t there a pep rally?”

  I forgot about it because I was planning on faking debilitating menstrual cramps and hiding in the yearbook office. There’s no way I can endure, like, three hours of pretending to laugh at our teachers throwing footballs or whatever. “But we should…not go to that, right?”

  “You mean skip?” Meg looks skeptical. I raise my eyebrows at her, and James joins in with a devilish grin.

  “Eh? Eh?” He pokes her shoulder like a little brother, incessant and playful.

  She gives him a look, trying not to crack a smile, and sticks her finger in his face. “Okay, but you’re driving.”

  * * *

  —

  I, straight-A student, well behaved and mostly afraid of hellfire, have never ditched school, so I never realized how easy it would be. There is literally no security at school, just some eternal angelic presence that’s supposed to make us feel guilty enough not to do anything wrong.

  When we get to the gravel parking lot, I take out a Parliament and light it, because why the hell not.

  “Good idea,” says James. Then, after selecting a baby-blue Nat Sherman from a silver cigarette case, he gestures at a dirty white truck with a ladder on its roof and some unidentifiable tarp-covered objects in the bed.